The sustainable skills crisis

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Good event last night organised jointly by sustainability networking outfit Sponge and engineers Atelier Ten. Mobilizing the New Environmentalists looked at the skills crisis facing the engineering profession from two perspectives: the sheer lack of numbers in the first place; and the different skills needed by engineers to respond to demand for more sustainable buildings. These were via a practicing engineer, Atelier's managing director Patrick Bellew, and architect Paul Monaghan, partner at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM).

For Bellew there was the sheer lack of numbers coming into the profession via university, a common malaise in our industry. "There are 20 times more people studying photography than building services," he said. And the situation is even worse amongst electrical engineers - "we are finding it beyond impossible to find them," Bellew said, pointing to the fact that most electrical engineers go into electronics or heavy power. This is a problem about the public profile (or lack of) of the industry where architects are perceived to be designers of "everything" rather than the reality, he added. And the skills needed to be a good services engineer are changing, Bellew said. Computer modelling, better presentation and graphic skills and more technical specialisms on technology are now essential to being an "environmental engineer" he said. In fact he added that he is seeing more architects switch over to engineering within his firm, especially in the US. An interesting trend perhaps?

Bellew's point about changing skills amongst engineers was backed by AHMM's Monaghan. He listed four things he wanted from engineers, some of which overlapped with Bellew. The four were

1. More flexibility in the process. "Design is an iterative process. It's important to be flexible."
2. Better presentation - Especially in terms of client interface. "You need to demystify the process and technologies to clients."
3. For the profession to split into two types of firms - concept environmental engineers and firms that deliver the detail.
4. For engineers to learn more about architecture - "You are going to be involved in architecture at an early stage. It's an exciting challenge."

Comments

[martin]

Phil, sustainable skills is a much wider issue than we may think - as recent articles suggest - Guardian 'Missing Monitors' - http://tinyurl.com/ytmwog
and 'Britain is facing a huge skills shortage that could undermine the success of the Olympics' - http://tinyurl.com/2ej6el