How Can We Tackle The Skilled Worker Shortage In The Industry?

Lee's Perspective

How Can We Tackle The Skilled Worker Shortage In The Industry?

With Long-Term Thinking That Starts Now.

The whole industry is affected by a severe shortage of skilled workers. It’s not just a lack of aircraft that’s challenging for the industry, but a lack of engineers, mechanics, and technicians too. On a recent earnings call to investors, Raytheon Technologies evidenced that as the subject of labour challenges came up 32 times. Eight times more than mentions of revenue.

Aviation is missing the hands-on experience gained by spending time on the tools. This knowledge has been in steady decline within the industry. It was made worse by the pandemic, which saw planes grounded, but also experienced people leaving the industry. Today, there aren’t enough skilled workers to step up into the roles vacated by those who left.

This decreasing experience isn’t a new trend. My own journey in the industry started at Britannia Airways in 1997. I was in a year of six apprentices; three Airframe & engine and three Avionic. At the time, Britannia had a small fleet of relatively new aircraft, B757 and B767, with an experienced workforce. This led to the perception of heavy maintenance requirements being lower and crucially staying lower, and as a result, apprentice numbers were shrinking. The years before me had often had 20 apprentices a year.

We’ve had some severe shocks in the last 30 years. 9/11 had an impact on training. Many companies reduced or stopped apprenticeships, as the industry struggled to forecast what would happen to air travel long term. In the UK, the reduction in size of the military, and in particular the RAF, has seen a drop in the number of skilled technicians and engineers from that source.

Finally, the pandemic exacerbated this generation gap. Many engineers and mechanics with decades of experience retired. Others retrained and found work in adjacent industries.

Many of us who are now senior in the industry started out as apprentices. And yet, aviation is not investing enough in practical training. We are now seeing the effect of this as we experience a skills shortage due to lack of forward planning. The same problem is happening with pilot shortages. Too many left the industry in the early 2020s and now that passenger numbers are picking up, there are not enough skilled pilots to fly the fleet. Mechanics are no different to pilots. They all need training.

Of course, many OEMs have big graduate schemes. These perhaps have a wider reach and provide wider business skills than apprenticeships. But, as a veteran Boeing employee said recently; “There’s no way you can learn how to build an airplane in a school on the third floor”. Apprenticeships give people practical skills and the knowhow to work directly on aircraft. It can’t be learnt quickly in the classroom, but needs to be learnt on the job, with guidance from more experienced people.

Our industry is used to long-term planning; we need to refocus this on training. We all know that great engineers are born out of structured training, inspirational leadership, and experience of the most basic task through to the most complex. At ecube we’ve taken on apprentices since we set up our MRO service in 2022. But it takes time. At Boeing, they predict that long-term demand for these roles remains strong. Their Pilot and Technician Outlook estimates that 690,000 new maintenance technicians will be needed over the next twenty years.

We all remember our apprentice years and know the benefits of training. At ecube I’m proud to lead an exec team where 3 out of 4 of us went through an apprenticeship programme. When I look at some of our most valued customers and industry friends their businesses also tell a similar story; be that MRO, OEM, Airline, Parts Company or Market Analysts. Some of their most senior people are ex-apprentices. So that tells me aviation’s leaders must understand the importance of apprenticeships.

Let’s work to halt the decline and promote the industry to new apprentices. We can recruit the bright stars of the future now. British Airways, easyJet, Jet 2, STS, STORM and of course ecube, are all companies that you will see proudly promoting apprenticeships and looking for the right candidates to fill the slots. We need to be the advocates of the industry and encourage more of our young people towards this great industry.

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