If you’re an IT professional or if you work in the construction industry as an engineering contractor, Scotland is the place to be.
At least, that’s what the Bank of Scotland recently reported, after it conducted a research study that found companies in the north were positively champing at the bit to bring new IT contractors or engineering and construction specialists into the fold. The skills shortage is in full swing in Scotland, with the bank discovering that growth rates have begun to drop off as of last month, resulting in below-average figures for more than one employment sector.
The construction and engineering sectors are most definitely hurting for skilled and qualified workers, as vacancies in these industries have hit an almost two and a half year high. In a way this is good news – for what it’s worth, it shows that there’s opportunities in the north thanks to the recovering economy, but the problem is that there’s simply not enough workers to go around to meet these levels of demand.
How do you know there’s a shortage in Scotland? Well it’s easy to see: vacancies have shot up but billings have remained the same. It’s obvious that the number of contractors and freelancers working in the north sadly hasn’t changed much, which means that all this opportunity is going a bit to waste.
It’s more than a bit disappointing to think there’s all this fantastic opportunity just waiting to be capitalised upon, but there’s simply not enough in the way of personnel to keep up with this demand. If you ask me, something should be done about this; now I’ve talked about this in the past, and I’ve suggested that initiatives from the public sector could help meet this flagging demand by encouraging more people to go into these highly sought-after fields.
The best way to do this would undoubtedly be to overhaul the educational system in order to provide the skills young graduates will need in order to fill these roles and provide for the needs of the recovering economy. Neglecting to do so could end up simply squandering this fantastic opportunity to continue to grow and recover the economy to something resembling what it was before the credit crisis and resultant recession. Well, we could leave off all that banking mis-management this time around – it might be better in the long run, don’t you reckon?
