UKESF releases UK electronics sector annual review

The UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) has published its Annual Review for 2018/19. It captures some of the many highlights and demonstrates several optimistic upward trends for the future of the UK electronics sector. Highlights include a national campaign for young people, the continued roll-out of circuit board teaching aids free to state schools and the publication of a new apprenticeship standard for the electronics sector, in addition to the growing of the UKESF Scholarship Scheme, a new internship programme and other new competitions and awards for electronics undergraduates.

The UKESF annual review captures some of the many highlights and demonstrates several optimistic upward trends for the future of the UK electronics sector / Picture: Getty/iStock

UKESF Chairman, Indro Mukerjee, said: “While the UKESF trustees are proud to make a difference to our university and industrial partners, we are most proud to make a difference to our scholars, the people who go through our programme. We help these young, capable, individuals at the very start of their careers by giving them the chance to be prepared for the workplace, enabling their first graduate work experience with leading UK technology companies, and giving them support and a sense of community as they develop their careers. In some way or other, the UKESF team gets to know the scholars as individuals; gets to know their hopes, their ambitions and each and every scholar is an example of how we can work together to develop the right skills to make our Electronics technology companies and UK industry successful.”

Chief Executive, Stew Edmondson, added: “This year, as we try to raise awareness about electronics among young people and to encourage them to think about careers in the sector, we decided to do something ‘different’. In our case, ‘different’ was a national campaign to try to change people’s perceptions about electronics. Elsewhere, we have seen our undergraduate Scholarship Scheme continue to grow and we have delivered a number of successful residential courses at our partner universities for sixth formers, as well as beginning to scale-up our ‘Electronics Everywhere’ projects for secondary schools. … Collaboration is at the heart of everything that we do at the foundation, and I would like to extend my personal thanks, once again, to all those individuals and organisations with whom we have collaborated this year.”

The UKESF’s mission is to encourage more young people to study electronics and to pursue careers in the sector. An educational charity launched in 2010, the UKESF operates collaboratively with major companies, leading universities and other organisations to tackle the skills shortage in the electronics sector. The UKESF ensures that more schoolchildren are aware of electronics and the opportunities available, helping them to develop their interest through to university study, supporting undergraduates and preparing them for the workplace.

You can read the full review here.