Food manufacturing sector needs more top end skills
From Food Manufacture
The food and drink manufacturing sector will see a big increase in managerial, professional and technically skilled vacancies, the Food Manufacture group can exclusively reveal, based on new research from the National Skills Academy for Food & Drink.
The manufacturing sector needed to recruit more than 49,000 new skilled professionals and managers along with 27,000 production staff by 2022, based on the academy’s labour market analysis published July 27. Overall, 109,000 new staff will be required over the next 10 years to replace retiring staff. That number included, in additional to top managerial roles, continued growth in openings for front-line production staff.
The academy’s ceo Justine Fosh told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “That’s great news for the next generation of talent and puts the food industry firmly on the map as a career destination of choice for those studying toward a rewarding job in a dynamic and highly innovative sector that’s home to some of the UK’s best known brands.” Fosh welcomed the education system’s renewed emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects because they “opened the door to a well-paid, secure future in food along with industry approved vocational training and high-quality apprenticeships”.
The latest predicted figures included a dip in the total number of people employed in the sector, as a result of increasing automation, new technology and efficiency gains. The forecast was down from the academy’s prediction of 170,000 vacancies forecast in 2012, after new data trends highlighted the strength of continued industry employment demand during and after the recession.