In the decade to 2020, the Greater Manchester economy grew by 39% from £53.89 billion to £78.7 billion and it has been one of the major UK city-regions driving job growth nationwide. With that, Manchester is the largest regional financial, professional, and business services hub outside of London, employing more than 280,000 people. With that in mind, the city has made a strategic gambit to attract international businesses, as part of a north-shoring strategy, where as a result, Spinningfield now has companies located there across Banking, Consulting, Insurance, Law and Technology, employing over 20,000 people overall. However, other than a momentary bounce in the afterglow of a definitive election result, business confidence in the region remains flat, and there are signs that the growth created through north-shoring has now reached its zenith, which begs the question, what next?

Enter Atom Valley, a £1billion megaproject which aims to create 20,000 jobs through creating an advanced manufacturing hub, and is set to open within two years. A tie-up between manufacturers, universities and public bodies, the objective is to create an advanced manufacturing super-cluster in the North of England which will focus on advanced materials and industrial digital technologies to support advanced manufacturing in the transition to net zero. Just as importantly for recruiters, Atom Valley will contain 17 million square feet of flexible employment space, and the objective is clear, to attract businesses and create an eco-system for advanced manufacturing to rival any other worldwide. Already businesses are starting to sign leases, with Solotech a global leader in audiovisual technology having now opened offices there.

This will only increase the pressure on the new Government to restart the investment into high speed 2. With that, a recent report just published, recommends building a new high-speed line from the Midlands to Crewe and Manchester – but at lower speed and to UK loading gauge. The study was led by Arup and pointed out that road and rail links in the area are at capacity and that ‘doing nothing on this corridor is not a viable option from either economic or operational perspectives.’ Given the importance of the North to the Labour party, don’t be surprised if this is announced shortly.

Nonetheless, the elephant in the room remains. The UK has a major problem with skills shortages, specifically in engineering, and in a recent study by Engineering UK, it was found that the percentage of graduates in engineering, manufacturing and construction in the UK was only 9.1%, which is significantly lower than Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Korea and Germany. In these countries, the percentage of graduates in these disciplines ranged from 14.4% to 22.1%. Meanwhile it is estimated that 173,000 new engineering and technology jobs will be created by 2030. And this is not factoring the crisis coming as long standing engineers retire. Could this lead to the Labour Party loosening immigration policy? To do so would leave them at risk of a flank attack from REFORM. In over 100 seats in the last general election, REFORM finished in second place and this will be front of mind for Labour Party politicians. But what other options are there?

A good time to be an engineer perhaps, and an even better one for engineering recruiters in the region.