The Next Recruitment Challenge May Not Be Growth. It May Be Replacement.
When businesses think about future recruitment, the conversation often starts with growth.
How many more people will we need? What new skills will the business require? Where will the next skills shortage emerge?
But over the next decade, one of the biggest workforce challenges facing UK businesses may be less about creating new jobs and more about replacing the people they already have.
Skills England's latest workforce projections indicate that replacement demand is expected to exceed net employment growth across all occupations through to 2035.
For advanced manufacturing, the figures are particularly striking.
Of the estimated 148,000 people required in priority occupations through to 2035, 101,000 are expected to be needed to replace existing workers. That's around 68% of total demand, compared with just 47,000 people required for growth.
When Someone Leaves, What Else Walks Out of the Door?
For engineering and manufacturing businesses, this isn't simply a numbers problem.
Experienced engineers, technical specialists and senior leaders can hold decades of knowledge about products, processes, customers and the business itself.
And retirement is already making that question increasingly important. More than a quarter of manufacturers expect to lose at least 10% of their workforce through retirement over a five-year period.
Replacing the person is one challenge.
Replacing what they know can be much harder.
That's why succession planning needs to begin well before a retirement announcement or resignation lands.
Would You Be Ready Tomorrow?
There is another reason why timing matters.
The average UK recruitment process is now around 12 weeks. Add a new employee's notice period and the time required for a meaningful handover and integration, and replacing a specialist engineering, technical or leadership employee can quickly become a six-to-nine-month process.
By the time somebody announces they're leaving, the succession planning window may already have closed.
The question for leadership teams therefore isn't simply who might leave?
It's whether the business has identified its critical roles, understands where knowledge is concentrated, is developing credible internal successors and knows when external recruitment may be required.
And perhaps the simplest test is this:
If one of the five most important people in your business told you tomorrow that they were retiring, do you know what would happen next?
Free Download: Succession Planning - Preparing Today for the Workforce You'll Need Tomorrow
Our new whitepaper explores the growing succession challenge facing UK engineering and manufacturing businesses and, importantly, what employers can do about it.
Inside, we look at replacement demand and retirement risk, protecting valuable organisational knowledge, developing internal successors, when external recruitment may be the better option, and how to start building a practical succession plan for your business.
Download the full Succession Planning whitepaper to start planning for the workforce you'll need tomorrow.