Manufacturing certainly experienced a bit of a wobble following last year’s EU membership referendum - but it’s making a comeback now.

EEF, The Manufacturers’ Organisation, has reported a stronger output than expected for the year’s first quarter, at its highest level since Q3 2013, and says all of the UK’s regions are reporting growth and strong expectations of new orders.

The news has prompted its CEO Terry Scuoler to remark: “The picture now is of a sector not quite in peak health, but certainly making a positive contribution to UK growth this year.” Allied with that growth is the change that is happening within the manufacturing sector itself, so rapidly that even existing practitioners are going at full stretch to keep up.

Today’s world of manufacturing is utterly different to that of barely one generation ago.

It’s a world of rapid innovation, complex technology and sustainability that is, on a daily basis, becoming a digital, data driven process. Technology is the driving force with ever-more faster and powerful computers operating machine tools, planning and CAD/CAM packages.

What’s more they’re going beyond the beginning-to-end production process to handle quality controls and inspections, shipping and logistics and the setting up of equipment.

Further transformation comes through 3D printing, which is now starting to redefine the sector through innovations enabling the printing of parts from metal powders or specialist resins rather than carving them out of blocks or bars. And it’s thanks to 3D printing’s possibilities for low-volume production and proto-typing that we’re likely to see large manufacturing plants shrink - in number and size.

Of course there’ll always be big facilities – in the automotive sector for example, another area of manufacturing undergoing something of a technological revolution through robotics. Machines are increasingly taking on more as they, too, became smarter, faster and cheaper. They are now being used in sectors such as food and beverage and, particularly life sciences, carrying out tasks requiring levels of dexterity and precision beyond human capacity.

This continuing technological onslaught means that manufacturing engineers have never been more important. They are the people who focus on the design and operation of integrated systems such as computer networks, robots, machine tools, and materials-handling equipment.

You might need one to:

• Come up with a cost-reducing, product improving circuit board manufacturing process.
• Develop and implement fabrication processes for nano-/micro-devices.
• Automate a chemical manufacturing facility through computer integrated technology.

It’s because they have such a diverse range of skills that organisations nationwide are crying out for their services to help them make use of the latest internet-enabled technologies which in turn will enable them to compete on a global stage. Yet the ongoing shortage of not just manufacturing engineers, but engineers generally, is still proving a major headache.

There are around 5.5 million people employed within the sector, generating revenues of £455.6 billion GDP to the UK but, according to industry organisation Engineering UK, employers will need to recruit 182,000 people with engineering skills every year between now until 2022 to make up the shortfall.

Draw up a shopping list of required expertise and it will include robotics specialists to help develop efficient automated factories, electrical engineers focussed upon reducing energy usage, lower fuel costs and reduced CO2 emissions, chemical engineers for firms manufacturing metal products and software engineers to program equipment for machine tool businesses.

Sadly, however, the brutal fact of life at the moment is that the UK education system is falling way short in not only ticking off this list but supplying the overall demand. Figures indicate there are only half as many graduates as employers need.

Engineering UK underlined this in its investigation into the state of the sector, Engineering UK 2017.

“There is consistent evidence (including from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the CBI and the IET) of skills shortages in key UK engineering sectors that are expanding, especially construction and ICT, as well as with manufacturing, despite its total size shrinking through automation,” it reported.

Manufacturing requires continued investment in innovation to consolidate the development of advanced manufacturing technology and concepts such as Industry 4.0.

Technological innovation and investment in upskilling the labour force are thought to be crucial to enhance levels of productivity in engineering and manufacturing, and to respond to the reshaping of the economy which will favour those with high skills.