With the engineering skills crisis worsening year on year, Morson Group has once again shown a proactive approach to tackling the problem by inspiring a new generation of engineers to become leaders in their field with their annual Early Careers Development Programme(ECDP) conference in Manchester.

Coinciding with Career Development Month in November, the conference brought together almost 150 engineers, architects, and project managers from across the Group’s Morson Projects, Waldeck and Ematics engineering businesses to challenge, inspire and encourage them as they progress on the award-winning ECDP.  New recruits came together with those already advancing through the programme and mentors and senior colleagues from across the organisation, taking on problem solving and engineering challenges to encourage collaborative working, as well hearing talks about where their career could take them.

The conference comes as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the UK lacks the technical and engineering skills to deliver major infrastructure projects. It also follows comments by IMechE president Dr Clive Hickman OBE about the essential need to invest in the development of engineers to deliver the government’s plan for a new Industrial Strategy by aligning skills programmes with industry needs to nurture the right talent to meet future demands.

“Our ECDP is totally focused on aligning the skills we’re developing to the talent that key industries need,” explains Executive Director, Chris Burke, “because these early careers professionals are given the opportunity and responsibility to work on live projects from day one. They do that with the full support and guidance of experienced senior engineers who are fully committed to helping our ECDP colleagues be the best version of themselves and reach their full potential.

“We are consistently and continuously developing the engineering skills the UK needs across the full range of engineering disciplines, with cross-disciplinary competences where possible. With our ECDP, we’re taking positive and proactive steps to resolve the skills gap with ambitious, homegrown talent, and our annual ECDP conference is a celebration of that, as well as a call to arms to the current cohort to embrace the challenges and opportunities it offers.”

To date, more than 125 engineers have progressed their career through Morson’s Early Careers Development Programme, which involves completing a competency framework based on engineering disciplines and workplace skills to ensure they have all the skills needed to successfully lead projects and deliver against client requirements. There is no set period for completing the programme and early careers engineers can opt to tackle each module in their own preferred sequence and timeframe, enabling each individual to work in a way that suits them.

“Engineering is a broad church,” Chris continues, “and our goal is to attract the best talent and encourage each individual to map their own path to career success and achievement. We’ve crafted our ECDP to support each engineer every step of the way, with trained mentors and collaborative project teams, but this is their programme and their career; it’s up to them to make it their own.”

The evidence suggests that Morson’s ECDP engineers are doing exactly that. The programme has been running for 4 years with 95 engineers currently developing their careers with the support of the ECDP. It has helped Morson’s engineering businesses to achieve an incredibly low 5 per cent staff turnover rate and engineers currently involved in the programme or who have completed it are currently involved in projects as diverse as the new Tempest Aircraft and Network Rail’s UK-wide Asset Management programme.

“The conference is just one of the ways in which we’re bringing early careers engineers together to enable them to connect and see the bigger picture,” Chris adds. “We all know that the UK needs more engineers, but we also need people who can lead in their field, manage projects and take bold decisions. Our ECDP and the conference we held for the current cohort are an invitation to be part of a transformative approach to building on the UK’s engineering legacy and leading its future.”

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