This week is the TTF Conference (now fully booked), and is something we have been working hard towards as a team. With record numbers this year and over 100 authorities attending, it will certainly be the biggest one so far! TTF has certainly transformed in the two years since I joined, and this will continue to be the case as we support the working groups (new and existing) and deliver more TTF activities. Please keep an eye on our socials to keep up to date on the event!
Also, this week we are announcing a new relationship and partnership with Primary Engineer. It’s the partnership I have been alluding to for a while, and one I am very excited about. Our partnership with Primary Engineer is going to be a key one for us and with Skills being one of our four pillars this new relationship will help us reach children and young people. Our partnership will be across both Highways and also Transport Technology.
I am going to write more about this wonderful organisation later in this article. But first, it has not escaped our sector’s collective hive consciousness that:
- There is a skills shortage
- There is an ageing workforce profile that within the next 5 to 10 years will not be easily replaced
- The profile of the sector outside of those in it is poor, and often negatively focuses on an incomplete perception of it being about Hi-Viz, bad roads and potholes.
Research from ourselves, CIHT, FHRG (Future Highways Research Group) and others continues to raise alarm about the skills gap.
With several industry reports now sounding the claxon we need to move beyond research and move into “do something about it”. This is starting to happen, and I am going to mention a couple of examples where practical action is underway. For example, we are working directly with organisations such as Salford College with the Highways Maintenance Apprenticeship to help build capacity locally in and around Manchester. In addition to us CIHT is also doing some great work with graduates and emerging young professionals. Hopefully others will follow too beyond just research.
But……I think we need to be encouraging interest in our sector at a much, much younger age. It has been bothering me that we aren’t looking early enough to help solve the long-term issues of future shortages in our sector. Globally there is a predicted skills shortage, this means every sector will be looking to attract future generations so there will be competition to attract people into sectors. I also think we need to encourage young girls, wider academic backgrounds and promotion into diverse communities that reflect our national make-up.
I first became interested in Primary Engineer earlier this year, and through serendipity Susan Scurlock, their CEO reached out to me. We arranged to meet in March, and I went with one of our board members Dwayne Lowe. Primary Engineer is based in Burnley, we are based in Blackburn, practically neighbours in my view! Both organisations do things quite differently in our fields and as a result have built reputations that are breaking new ground and disruptive in nature but have a real impact.
You only need to read the Impact Report for 2022/2023 to see the work that Primary Engineer is doing and with a wide range of young pupils across the country. This for me is where collaboration and working with others is crucial to success. We could never hope to introduce or develop something with schools and why would we when this is their strength, and they have programmes already well developed. But in the roads and transport technology space, there is a wealth of insight, competition entries that they see that is going untapped and needs to be brought into our sector and vice versa.
Both Susan and I identified early on in our conversations that there was a clear, and worrying gap between connecting their research, findings, competitions and our concerns about young people and very young children not seeing roads or associated areas as one worthy of a future career. So, for both our organisations this partnership makes complete sense!
Susan and I have some big ideas and plans over the next few years but initially you will start to see Susan’s team at our events including this year’s Innovation and Learning Festival, Strictly Highways and through other regular activities. In fact, this week I am looking forward to being part of the North West judging team for the “If you were an Engineer” competition that is run nationally and currently going through regional judging.
I can’t recommend highly enough the publication “If you were an Engineer” which showcases ideas from the last ten years. At this year’s Innovation and Learning Festival and working jointly we are creating space to showcase some of the young thinking, pictures and ideas that are shortlisted at the “If you were an Engineer” competitions. There is a successful Rail programme already in place and I want us to develop something similar in time with Susan and her brilliant team.
I am excited, as you can tell, but it’s baked in a determination to tackle some of the profile issues of our sector and that is a much more serious issue that we rarely discuss.
If you want to find out more about this new partnership, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.
Paula Claytonsmith, CEO