AMP Future Leaders shine a light on what matters to them

AMP Future Leaders roundtable explores ‘what’s important’ to people in the early stages of their advanced manufacturing and engineering careers.

This autumn AMP Technology Centre hosted the second AMP Future Leaders gathering. Following the Network’s launch in July 2024, the recent roundtable explored a range of topics relevant to people pursuing advanced manufacturing and engineering careers here in South Yorkshire. 

AMP Future Leaders Network was established to support, empower and listen to the voices of apprentices, graduates and people in the early stages of their careers in and around AMP Technology Centre. The remit and aims of the group were co-designed by members who have a shared ambition to communicate the outcomes and discussions beyond the Network; amplifying the voices of future leaders within the region’s business and placemaking community.

The roundtable discussion explored challenges and themes most likely to affect people working in engineering and advanced manufacturing sectors from the perspective of a future leader. 

Amongst peers, the group were able to share their thoughts, concerns and solutions openly and honestly. This led to a positive and productive conversation and useful (often unheard) learning.

Twenty percent of the AMP Future Leaders Network are still in education – either studying engineering, on university placements, or part-way-through a degree apprenticeship. The remaining 80 percent are graduates employed in engineering, tech and advanced manufacturing roles across renewable energy, aviation, med-tech and green technology businesses. The Network live, work and study in South Yorkshire.

Top line learning

AMP Future Leaders Network considered a range of sector challenges and agreed that the following were the three most pressing issues facing the advanced manufacturing and engineering sectors in 2024:

  1. Productivity
  2. Sustainability – the green agenda
  3. Skills training for people

Other challenges considered to be highly relevant to the future leaders included:

  • Profitability of businesses
  • Supply chains
  • Attracting new talent to the sector
  • Money, time and resources for innovation
  • Access to spaces and equipment

The onward conversation highlighted a number of personal concerns that had evolved from the group’s own experiences entering into advanced manufacturing and engineering roles and thinking ahead to their future leadership prospects. These included:

  • Gender equality
  • Career progression and mechanisms – including internal reward systems, staff wellbeing and organisational culture
  • Collaboration and information sharing across teams
  • Customer expectations – specifically the disconnect between the possible and the desired.

Digging  deeper

Gender equality

On the topic of gender equality, all members shared a view that this was important and required attention from the industry. The make-up of the Network itself is more than two thirds male and Gen Z. When members were asked about the breakdown of male and female employees within their businesses the lack of senior female role models was evident. None of the AMP Future Leaders attending had a female lead engineer, CEO or MD in their place of work. The experience of university students was slightly different – citing more women in academia and research and having more orchestrated contact with industry leaders who are women. It was also recognised that in certain disciplines, bio-engineering for example, it is not uncommon to have a 50/50 split of male and female teams. All agreed that diversity was shifting but that the changes were generational and not moving quickly enough. Members shared their own personal experiences of times when they felt uncomfortable or disadvantaged because of their gender.

“There is still a lot of male energy in these environments. If you’re someone that is interested in maths, engineering, science and technology, then you do slowly acclimatise to it through school and then later at university. As you pass through your studies and move closer to the workplace, you see the numbers of males in the classroom grow and the numbers of females reduce. By the time you start a job, it is less of a shock that you are a minority, but this isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

Takeaways: Gender equality must continue to be prioritised and championed in the workplace, beyond the more commonly expected efforts made by schools, colleges and universities.

Sustainability

How important (or not) the theme of sustainability and the green agenda was to individuals seemed to track directly with the ‘type’ of business they worked for.  AMP Technology Centre is a hub for green technology and renewable energy businesses, so it is not surprising that sustainability would be at the forefront of occupier interest.  

However, the conversation took an interesting turn when the group explored the roles of sustainability managers and the inferences from senior leaders in some places of work, that the ‘green agenda’ was largely the responsibility of people in the early stages of their careers, and yet to find a solid champion at boardroom level.

“It seems to fall on the younger generation in the workplace to come up with the plan of how to make things more sustainable.” 

“I find that because of our age, often we are expected to be more aware of sustainability and how to improve our green credentials. Incorporating sustainable practices, producing sustainable products, investing in sustainable supply chains etc is a major challenge for business but it needs to be understood across the business. It isn’t about young people proving to upper management that this is something we need to think about.  It is something that should be built into every department across the businesses.”

“Younger people do often find themselves pushing the sustainability agenda because we are learning about it at university and as graduates we have the most recent knowledge. Young people do feel that there is a pressure that they will be the ones to modernise and revolutionise industry but it’s an uphill battle unless you have buy-in from senior management.”

“You have to be able to demonstrate feasibility and you have to consider the bottom line – the greener material, process, machine, fuels are rarely the most cost effective in the short term and the decisions senior leaders make might well be coloured by whether they will themselves be around to see the profitability and results of those calls which could be15 years down the line.”

Takeaways: Whilst young people can share new knowledge and help drive innovation, the green agenda needs to be budgeted for and championed by senior management if it has any realistic prospects of adoption within a business.

Career progression, recognition and wellbeing

Ambition to progress in their careers and a passion for engineering and advanced manufacturing are shared values that unite the AMP Future Leaders. The discussion about job progression emphasised the extent to which the business culture and experiences of older co-workers affected members’ optimism about their own futures in the industry.

“As someone in the early stages of their career you do look at your peers who have been working for ten years or more and learn from their experiences. How they ‘feel’ about their job and their own progression is an indication of what you can expect.”

“It looks to be much harder to keep people who are mid-level career motivated. A little can go a long way when you are in the early stages of your career and there are some very obvious benefits to being in a senior leadership post. Wellbeing and reward systems should probably be prioritising those mid-level career people who need it the most and tend to feel the most underappreciated.”

“For people like us, opportunities to network like this are rare and that probably does hinder development. It is commonplace at senior management level to benefit from this type of group and less so for us.  It’s really great to have the opportunity to build relationships and discuss important issues in this way.”

Takeaways: Business strategies to attract and retain talent should consider that young people look to the experiences of mid-level career colleagues.

Closing thoughts and what next?

The AMP Future Leaders roundtable discussion provides insights from the next generation of business leaders. By sharing key take-aways we aim to improve understanding and disseminate learning to interested parties across the wider sector.

It is well-evidenced that opportunities to connect, collaborate, share social capital and knowledge are critical components of a healthy innovation ecosystem. AMP Technology Centre aims to make a long-term investment in the sector-specific community that co-exists across the Park and the region, by supporting the AMP Future Leaders Network to set up and grow.

The next AMP Future Leaders Network event will be the Christmas Social sponsored by IET South Yorkshire and Creative Space Management. People in the early stages of their advanced manufacturing and engineering careers can express an interest to join the Network by contacting rowan.hall@cretaivespaceman.com

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