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Less than 4% of global engineering firms have confidence in their climate resilience skills, according to an international survey by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), which surveyed engineering employers in eight countries. While nearly 90% of the surveyed firms have seen their bottom lines take a hit due climate-driven supply chain disruptions, almost all organizations said their specialist environmental and leadership skills are not adequate to meet their net zero targets.
Findings: There are mixed opinions across the surveyed markets on which skills are most needed for climate resilience, from technical and engineering skills to softer skills like whole systems thinking. Developing countries including China, Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and Brazil believe their climate resilience capacity is highly inadequate. Surveyed engineering firms in China and Malaysia said they have 1% of required resiliency skills, while Egypt and Brazil said they have 3% and Saudi Arabia 2%. Developed countries did not fare much better, with Germany and the US each noting 4%, and Australia and the UK sitting at 7% and 10% respectively.
Goals in place, but upskilling needed: IET’s research also found that while 67% of surveyed organizations have formulated sustainability goals — partly to meet entry requirements for new markets — 75% of respondents say they still need to upskill their workforce and boost knowledge transfer, especially on specialist sustainability technical skills to to realize their targets.
China is leading the pack: The majority of surveyed firms — except for those in the UK — believe their countries’ education systems are capable of equipping the next generation of engineers with the necessary climate resilience skills, with 95% of respondents from China noting their education pipeline adequately prepares younger people for the sector.
More academic collaboration needed: Engineering employers overwhelmingly see collaboration with academia as essential to graduating proficient engineers, and all surveyed organizations — except those in Egypt — see collaboration programmes between academia and the private sector as critical to delivering quality tech leaders.
What they said: “To help meet national net zero targets, businesses are telling us that they want to see their governments focusing their policies on economic development and industrial strategy, as well as closer collaboration between academia and industry to ensure more high-quality engineering and technology candidates are ready for industry,” IET President Gopichand Katragadda noted last month.
