The lack of suitably skilled workers in utilities and construction is well documented, but the issue for electricity and gas companies is compounded by the government’s smart meters target.
With less than four years until the deadline is reached to install smart meters in every UK household, more than 48 million meters have yet to be installed. This means that the rate of installations must increase at least fivefold to more than one million per month!
Heavy penalties have already been issued to suppliers who have failed to meet their smart metering targets for non-domestic customers. In 2014, for example, British Gas was fined £4.5 million for failing to meet its target of installing 28,000 smart gas meters and 15,000 smart electricity meters. Eon has also been fined £7 million for installing only 13,000 of a targeted 20,000 smart meters for its business customers.
Furthermore, the industry now faces the challenge of updating to Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specifications 2 (SMETS2), the latest generation of smart metering technology. Perhaps alarmingly, this means some of the smart meters recently installed already need to be replaced, adding further to the substantial workload.
Consequently, the demand for qualified operatives is increasing further but the gas and electricity industries, as with other sectors, are struggling to attract talented workers and upskill their current workforce as a result of an absence of long-term investment in training.
Traditionally, engineers have been trained in either gas or electricity installation. The focus has now changed, however, to upskill these existing engineers with dual-fuel installation capabilities and to attract new talent to the industry.
Future engineers will be required not only to have the training and qualifications to perform installations, but also to provide excellent customer service skills to ensure that customers understand their smart metering systems and can understand their energy usage accordingly.
In part, the issue has been recognised by the government, and the new Apprenticeship Levy is likely to help tackle the problem of skills shortages.
However, to make the most of this approach we would urge employers to act now by selecting training providers that are accredited, well-established, and able to deliver a mix of traditional and modern training via flexible, relevant and responsive programmes. In this way, employers may actually derive good value from their levy “investments”.