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February 2009
Will Aerospace Lead the Way for Other Industries?
The aerospace industry is continuing to stay aloft despite the downturn and the outlook is positive for most engineering jobs in the sector. How can the strength of this sector apply to other industry segments?
There is still a steady amount of activity in aerospace partly because of the long lead times in aircraft design and manufacture. European planemaker Airbus and its US rival Boeing have enough advance orders to keep them busy for the next four years, which means good news for research and development jobs. There have been some order cancellations but, generally speaking, the backlogs are still resilient.
Michael Morrica, sales manager for Modis International in Brussels, says there is still a healthy supply of high-level engineering roles. “Plane manufacturers still have money to spend on research and development and there is a wide range of Government-backed strategic aerospace projects – both military and civil – in which there is a need for highly skilled engineers.”
His colleague, sales consultant Benjamin Crucq, says that demand persists for permanent roles in the sector. “My clients are looking for skilled people with knowledge of the industry whom they can retain and develop. Software, hardware and stress engineers are all needed for long-term projects. Although we hear about certain projects being delayed, companies are not going to cancel these projects just because we are going through an economic downturn.”
Employment in Aerospace and Defence (ASD) industries in Europe was around 634,600 in 2008. But demand for skilled engineers is not limited to Europe, as Michael Morrica notes: “There is a growing demand to break into the sector from countries such as China, Russia and India which has resulted in both a supply and a demand for engineers.”
In addition, the scramble for greater fuel economy and lower emissions that is gripping the industry is also keeping the jobs market buoyant. The big players – Rolls-Royce, GE, Pratt & Whitney and Snecma - are spending hundreds of millions of pounds a year on research and development, driven by the long-term prospect of high oil prices and harsh scrutiny of aviation’s contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions.
The drive to improve fuel efficiency and therefore to save costs, has resulted in many aerospace companies investigating “composites”, a lighter material than the traditional metallics counterpart. This has resulted in various new R&D initiatives, increasing the demand for specialised “composite” engineers.
Aerospace engineers are also needed in other industries. Kerry Barclay, sales manager in Eindhoven, in The Netherlands, reports that opportunities for engineers are continuing at the European Space Agency (ESA) which receives funding from its 18 member states. ESA manages projects aimed at generating new scientific knowledge and new practical applications in space exploration. One current project is Galileo, a global navigation system currently under development, with a proposed 30 dedicated navigation satellites and main control centres in Europe.“We’ve supplied to ESA for 30 years and some of our contractors have worked there until retirement,” says Kerry. “At the moment, we have roles for microwave, component, payload and safety engineers. We also see demand for technician roles.”
Some engineers are looking ahead and opting to change sectors and work for the oil and gas, and alternative energy sector, which is also heavily reliant on government subsidies. The involvement of government money, funnelled towards high tech professional positions, makes for an appealing combination which is resilient in hard times and robust in good economies.
Alternative energies are low carbon economy fuels that eliminate carbon and methane emissions. For example, domestic natural gas, a fossil fuel, is regarded as an alternative energy to foreign petroleum as a transportation fuel. There is also a trend of growing demand for mechanical engineers in the manufacture of wind and gas turbines.
Interest in this sector has risen following the row between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies, which led to shortages in Eastern and Central Europe. Michael says: “After what happened, companies are looking at ways of becoming more energy-efficient. A number of clients are also looking for control, process and mechanical engineers, energy inspectors and service engineers. There is a cross-over between the aerospace and alternative energy sectors and although it’s not essential to have aerospace experience to apply for such jobs, it would certainly be useful.”
In summary, the aerospace sector is benefitting from increased demand for fuel efficiency, a hybrid model of government investment in private sector industry, and high skilled professional positions involved in multiyear projects, makes for a powerful recession-busting combination.
Modis International has focused on the aerospace and engineering sector since its inception. A specialist team dedicated to supplying engineers for key clients on a contract and permanent basis is based in Brussels and is part of a network of offices across Europe.