We had a great response to our 2nd Photonics Scotland Manufacturing Skills survey.

In encouraging news, all companies surveyed anticipate an increase in jobs relating to manufacturing in the next 3-5 years. However finding the right people to fill these positions may be challenging with  64% of companies surveyed experiencing a skills shortage vacancy relating to manufacturing in the last 12 months and 71% reporting a current skills gap.

These gaps straddle both technical functions (e.g. laser and optical assembly, testing and measurement, and electrical and software engineering) and non-technical functions (e.g. operations management, compliance/regulation knowledge and project management). Interestingly, our survey also highlighted a chronic shortage of skilled operators and technicians with relevant photonics skills.

This shortage is perhaps further illustrated by survey results that showed that, while there is a continued need for highly skilled, high level education routes into manufacturing roles, there is also significant forecasted demand for other routes into the sector such as college qualifications and apprenticeships.

On the skills development front, technology specific skills training, and apprenticeships (both graduate and modern) along with postgraduate degrees were highlighted as the training options of most interest to the sector. This is highly relevant to the recently developed Practical Photonics Skills Course, delivered by the Manufacturing Skills Academy at NMIS and developed in partnership with Technology Scotland and industry partners.

For more details about this course or the survey outputs please contact our Senior Programme Manager for Photonics at [email protected]