LONDON, July 9 /PRNewswire/ --     The engineering and technology sector is facing a growing recruitment
crisis and there is little confidence that the problem will improve in the
short or medium term the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology)
warned today.

The IET's annual skills survey of 500 companies also revealed that
businesses are turning to countries such as India, China and South Africa to
plug the skills gap with 48 per cent of companies recruiting from overseas in
the last 12 months to cover specific skills shortages.

Business that expect to face difficulties in recruiting adequate suitably
qualified engineers, technicians or technologists over the next four years
had risen from 40.2 per cent in 2006 to 51.8 per cent in 2007.

Paul Jackson, director of professional operations at the IET said: "The
engineering and technology sector is vital to the future prosperity to the
UK's economy and an increase in skills shortages puts the future growth,
success and competitive advantage of many businesses into serious doubt. The
UK desperately needs to increase the pool of engineers and technicians to
meet demand."

The IET's latest survey builds on information from 2006, and shows that
although the engineering and technology sector is still growing and
recruiting only 56 per cent of respondents believed they would be able to
recruit enough people into engineering and technical roles this year.
Confidence is down - this represents a fall from 65 per cent believing the
same in 2006.

Carson Bradbury, European Director of Cre8Ventures said: "The acute
shortage of highly skilled engineers coming out of our Universities is
damaging our regions long-term ability to compete in the Global Market.
Consequently there is a collective, urgent call to action for government to
significantly improve the quality of our STEM teaching staff as well as the
overall image of science based subjects in our schools."

Other findings:

- Recruitment of women has remained static. Just 7 per cent of the
engineering and technology workforce are women and this figure is unlikely to
improve with the majority of respondents (52.2 per cent) estimating that the
proportion of female candidates recruited to engineering and technology roles
will remain the same in the next four years.

- More than 70 per cent of companies in the UK are struggling to recruit
experienced or mid career level staff which could threaten growth and
competitiveness.

- Companies stated that leadership skills were the most important among
experienced or mid career level staff. 90 per cent of companies had to
provide additional training with technical, mentoring, coaching and
communication and leaderships skills being the top needs being addressed.

- Of those companies recruiting from abroad 46 per cent of those were
recruited from the EU.

- 50 per cent of respondents said that they would not be recruiting
school leavers.

Notes to editors:

The IET's annual survey of 500 IET business partners was conducted via
internet based questionnaires. The sample represented a mix of UK companies
all in the engineering and technology sector.

The survey and report is available up on request.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is one of the world's
leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community.
The IET has more than 150,000 members in 127 countries and has offices in
Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The Institution provides a global
knowledge network to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas and
promotes the positive role of Science, Engineering and Technology in the
world.

For further information visit www.theiet.org