Engineering Focus

A version of this article was originaly published in Rail Magazine in August 2021     A recent tweet commenting on what appears to be a new generation of young rail enthusiasts got me thinking about skills and how the industry can attract the next generation of railway workers. The skills gap within the rail industry seems to be a subject which comes up frequently and has been in part blamed for the difficulty the industry has had in delivering large infrastructure projects. GWML electrification and the Control Period 5 debacle highlighted the issues the industry has with a lack of skilled workers to undertake the monumental task of upgrading the UK's railway network. The CP5 debacle was in my opinion largely the fault of the Government, they simply asked the industry to do too much in such a short space of time, but it is clear that the rail industry must attract and retain skilled people if it is to continue to modernise.   I do think there may be a deep-rooted issue with encour