The government’s new technical colleges need to stress Science Technical Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects to meet talent shortages, according to Richard Hamer, education director and head of early career programmes at BAE Systems

Yesterday, the chancellor committed to funding 24 new technical colleges, providing 11-19-year-olds with vocational training.

Hamer told Recruiter: “There is a case to emphasise STEM subjects, with a shortage of young people doing maths and physics. There are broad technical skills that our sector and the wider economy requires in terms of greater uptake of STEM.

“Local employers and local markets can help shape activity within diplomas for the new technical colleges. Schools and communities need to decide what they need. If there are big local employers nearby, they can work with the technical colleges to decide what works for them.

“We will see what happens with Japan and the nuclear situation but there is a plan to replace our nuclear power stations. There is definitely a shortage of nuclear engineering skills.

“We historically have had issues with software and systems engineering, although in the current market, we have not had a problem recruiting. We do anticipate that when the economy recovers, in a year or 18 months, we will find more difficulties recruiting systems and software engineers in particular because lots of engineering companies are recruiting those skills. That is at the university end but we need to get the fundamentals right.”