BP 'cannot find skilled workers'

StevieJ

Just makes no sense does it? 50% of young people going through university and BP can't find enough (I imagine, extremly well paid) engineers to fill the posts We need to develop a university structure that is fit for purpose in the 21st Cent.

A shortage of engineering skills in the UK could hamper growth at BP's North Sea operations, an executive has said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14521890

westv

StevieJ wrote: »

Just makes no sense does it? 50% of young people going through university and BP can't find enough (I imagine, extremly well paid) engineers to fill the posts We need to develop a university structure that is fit for purpose in the 21st Cent.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14521890

Could it be that BP requires experienced staff? If that is the case then it's hardly something that university students will be able to help with.

madcal87

I work for a rival BP company, not as well known, and many are being head hunted across.
There is no shortage of staff or skilled works, i'm a graduate and they are taking on loads. Give it a year and it will be hunky dory

Really2

You would think BP would want to run a fairly large apprenticeship scheme so they get skilled people, rather than just relying on the education system providing enough people.

Personally I think it comes from parents in the 70's & 80's wanting their children not to do engineering / manual work due to the instability they faced over that era.

Generali

Young people decide what they want to do at uni and Universities provide the courses.

Providing more empty engineering courses is unlikely to help nor is trying to force people to study engineering.

I don't claim to have a solution, the solution is in the hands of the future employers paying enough that they attract students to fill the skill gap and students deciding that they want to learn that rather than I]insert fatuous course of choice here[/I. If engineers are paid substantially less than investment bankers, accountants and corporate lawyers then fewer bright students will want to head that way.

Pennywise

Generali wrote: »

Young people decide what they want to do at uni and Universities provide the courses.

If only that were true. My observation is that the FE establishments decide what courses to offer and then students have to make the best of it.

Look at the medical universities. FAR too few places for doctors, dentists & hygienists - the few places have been grossly oversubscribed for decades, but the Uni's havn't matched supply to the demand.

I used to lecture in accountancy at our local college of FE. We only offered courses for one accountancy body and only offered courses in one computerised accounting system. There was plenty of demand from potential students for other courses, but that demand was simply ignored. Our accountancy head of dept just wasn't interested in expanding the range of courses - he was happy with the courses offered and that was the end of the conversation - it wasn't negotiable - students could take it or leave it. As the take-up was always high enough, they had no incentive to do anything differently.

The reality is that the FE establishments will only offer the courses that they are easily able to provide, and aren't interested in making work for themselves by offering anything new.

CLAPTON

engineering has never been a well paid job; lots of talk about 'shortages' but pay is often below other graduate jobs.


they go on to say
quote
"We are hiring a lot of people, but we are also an exporter of a couple of hundred people to other regions [in BP]. We are a centre for recruiting elsewhere."
The rest of the company viewed its North Sea operations as a "training ground", with talented workers snapped up to fill posts overseas, Mr Garlick said.

end quote

which presumably means that other regions of BP pay a lot more and or offer better opportunities for these people

Generali

Pennywise wrote: »

If only that were true. My observation is that the FE establishments decide what courses to offer and then students have to make the best of it.

Look at the medical universities. FAR too few places for doctors, dentists & hygienists - the few places have been grossly oversubscribed for decades, but the Uni's havn't matched supply to the demand.

I used to lecture in accountancy at our local college of FE. We only offered courses for one accountancy body and only offered courses in one computerised accounting system. There was plenty of demand from potential students for other courses, but that demand was simply ignored. Our accountancy head of dept just wasn't interested in expanding the range of courses - he was happy with the courses offered and that was the end of the conversation - it wasn't negotiable - students could take it or leave it. As the take-up was always high enough, they had no incentive to do anything differently.

The reality is that the FE establishments will only offer the courses that they are easily able to provide, and aren't interested in making work for themselves by offering anything new.

When you say FE establishments I don't know if you mean universities or not but my experience is that courses that aren't filled cost unis financial penalties so get dropped and that people will follow the money so if there is a demand for courses, courses will be offered.

ChiefGrasscutter

Generali wrote: »

I don't claim to have a solution, the solution is in the hands of the future employers paying enough that they attract students to fill the skill gap and students deciding that they want to learn that rather than I]insert fatuous course of choice here[/I. If engineers are paid substantially less than investment bankers, accountants and corporate lawyers then fewer bright students will want to head that way.

Myself as an engineer, I think 'Generali' has pretty well summed it up here.
The problem is that seemingly unlike the finance industry if you raise the pay significantly the work and the companies will simply go abroad, to places like India and China. ---hence numbers of staff available at all levels in the UK decreases as the number of companies drops and the options for advancement for staff also drops. Think of working for Rolls Royce..how many other manufacturing companies in the same field could you move to in the UK if you wanted to advance your career - pretty well none your options become limited. Seen the same sort of thing happening the the medical research sector as well.
People/companies seem to be prepared to pay for finance related stuff far more than they are prepared to pay for engineering/science related stuff.....

There are some additional issues:
Often is quite easy to get Graduates, it's what happens after their professional training for 2 years (plus the 2 years 'experience') that is the problem. They have had a great introduction and been wisked from dept to dept often round the world, then at the end they realise they are going to have to what they now feel is boring/drugery work in some dept analysing airflow, oil well boring cuttings, electrical test performance data or whatever........then they leave.
I'm always suspicious when someone says there is a shortage of "engineers" - when we know that in the UK the word engineer is a highly abused term. Do they actually have a shortage of fully qualified Chartered Engineers or is is a case that they have a shortage of some lower qualification grade staff equivalent to a car mechanic.

The worst pay rate I've ever seen was a few years ago for some short term contract 'quality engineer' within the auto industry - not a chartered engineer or graduate level requirement but with some sort of established quality/automotive background so probably in their 40's. - the rate £10 per hour - yup that is not a misprint, it is indeed ten pounds per hour and that is less than you can get a gardener for.

itsallagame_2

Bit more behind the story, BP, can find the right personnel but as with other oil/gas businesses but they have difficulty in attracting graduates and retaining staff once trained.
The reason…..the training ground, Aberdeen, too far away from family and friends for a lot of guys and the shear boredom in the bleak winters.

Loughton_Monkey

Reading all these posts, I can only assume that the ever-escalating house prices in Aberdeen are likely to be the real problem.

This is no different from the 60's/70's

I recall that just before the time was coming for my year to apply to university, us 'Maths, Physics, Chemistry' students received a 'visitation' from external careers advice people. They were on a 'mission' that was quite clear. British Industry was screaming for engineers. We were told 'do not read Chemistry. Read Chemical Engineering. Don't do Physics. Do Electronics Engineering or Civil Engineering......

Rather perversely, this 'struck home' to me and I plumped for a good 4-year course in Chemical Engineering. So it was about 5 years later that I (and all my colleagues) were waving our degrees about and attending all the 'milk round' interviews - for those Chemical companies who could be bothered to attend. They were all in deep recession at the time (1972). Most (Shell, BP etc.) were not recruiting at all. ICI (the largest) were looking for 6 graduates [they took 60 the year before, and over 100 the year before that...]

So I went and took a career in Insurance. I'm actually very glad I did!