Skills shortage highlighted as threat to science and engineering

Pharmaceutical and engineering leaders have urged the UK government to plug widening skill gaps in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said in a report published on 30 January that the UK was falling behind the rest of the world in the number of UK undergraduates studying STEM subjects. This sentiment was echoed in another report, published by the Royal Academy of Engineering on the same day, that indicated a “worrying stagnation” in the number of young people choosing to study subjects that lead to engineering careers.

The ABPI found that during the last decade the number of UK undergraduates studying STEM subjects increased by 16 per cent, which pales in comparison to the increase in overall undergraduate student numbers from the other 27 European Union countries and from outside the EU, which increased by 52 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.