News
The UKESF has been featured in an article on the CW (Cambridge Wireless) website, ‘Are you missing out on the best graduate talent?’.
…Committed to addressing this issue, the UKESF is a not for profit whose mission is to encourage more young people to study Electronics and to pursue careers in the sector. Led by CEO Stew Edmondson, the team works collaboratively with major companies, leading universities and other organisations to tackle the skills shortage in the Electronics sector. A number of CW’s members are already engaged with their programmes, including Arm, Qualcomm, IC Resources and Plextek.
UKESF would like to see more engineering firms offer student work placements and supporting undergraduates in their professional development, so that when they graduate these students are equipped with work-ready skills and experience.
“We firmly believe that we, as an industry, need to do more to support those studying at university. The IET reports that only 37% of respondents to their survey on Skills & Demand in Industry provided work placements to engineering and technology students. This is disappointingly low percentage; investing in undergraduates to give them practical real-world experiences that complement their academic studies is a real ‘win-win’.”
Stewart Edmondson, CEO of UKESF
Placements are a mutually beneficial process that offers invaluable return to both employer and student. For the business, placements offer a low-risk talent pipeline through which you, secure in the knowledge of an individual’s performance and capabilities, can offer graduate contracts; it also creates opportunities through which you can train future managers (line-managing a work placement student is a great first step on the managerial ladder), and it ensures that your organisation plays its part in nurturing the future of the UK’s engineering skills base…
Read the full article here.
