Solving the UK manufacturing skills gap with cross-generational learning

MTC surveyed a thousand people from the manufacturing workforce to better understand their outlook on skills and training – and some of the findings may surprise you. As the manufacturing skills gap continues to accelerate, is part of the solution hidden in plain sight?

The Manufacturing Skills Gap & the UK Industrial Strategy

Developing a sustainable manufacturing talent pipeline

Manufacturing workforce development and future skills are recognised challenges across all areas of the sector. However, only 54% of Baby Boomers (aged 60 to 66) have a clear training and development plan for their role, and four in ten say their existing skills are unused. Meanwhile, those newer to the manufacturing industry are hungry to develop new skills, with Generation Z (18 to 27) and Millennials (28 to 43) being the most motivated to learn by the prospect of advancing their careers. They also feel the most confident about having a clear development training plan within their workplace, but more than a quarter are concerned that this plan neglects the ‘soft skills’ so essential for professional success.

Thankfully, there is a strong willingness to share skills across the generations. Over 90% of manufacturing workers are comfortable learning from older colleagues, and 76% are happy to be taught by their younger colleagues.

So how can employers effectively harness both the existing knowledge base and innovative talent within their current workforces to tackle their manufacturing skills gaps and prepare for the future? As manufacturers adopt and harness digital technologies to manage and automate production, cross-generational learning offers an opportunity for teams to share knowledge and experience and  build a more resilient workforce. Our survey suggests that manufacturing businesses already have everything they need to get started.
 

The skills challenge for the future of manufacturing

UK manufacturing at a glance: supports 7.3m jobs (22.4% of total UK jobs), contributes 23.1% of GDP, faces a growing skills shortage due to demand, workforce shrinkage and rapid tech change. Maintaining a sustainable manufacturing talent pipeline is crucial to ensure that the sector can keep up with innovative technologies that enables it to fulfil its global economic potential. But the well-documented skills gap continues to increase at a concerningrate as a result of growing demand for skilled workers. According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 49,000 current manufacturing sector job vacancies. 42% of these are already considered skill-shortage vacancies (SSV), which are ‘hard-to-fill roles resulting from a lack of skilled, experienced or qualified applicants. In 2017, just 29% were considered SSVs, illustrating a significant acceleration of the skills shortage. And manufacturers are feeling the pinch – 97% say that recruiting and maintaining a skilled workforce is a challenge , and 75% report skills shortages as their greatest growth barrier.

Without effective  intervention, this all means that the current manufacturing talent pipeline will continue to fall short of demand. Cross-generational learning offers a solution to cultivate  home-grown talent with the technical and interpersonal skills that will secure the future of manufacturing. 
 

Why Gen Z and Baby Boomers must work together

Often contrasted as opposing ends of a spectrum, our survey findings reveal that Baby Boomers and Gen Z in manufacturing have more in common than you’d expect. And their different experiences are an important clue to a successful skills solution.

Shared motivations– at opposite ends of the career ladder 

A third of both generations of workers are motivated to learn new skills by personal growth and curiosity, whilst a quarter of both age groups want to improve job efficiency. The majority agree that emerging technology will affect their roles within the next five years, their preferred learning style is in-person training, and they’re overwhelmingly comfortable learning from colleagues from different generations.

Meanwhile, 37% of Generation Z employees said that they felt a lack of mentorship to support the application of newly gained skills was their biggest training barrier, and a third of Boomers don’t feel their workplace offers a clear training plan.

Clearly, there is an opportunity to share skills across the generations to achieve common goals, enabling the more experienced workforce to embrace innovation and change, and allowing organisations to retain their wealth of knowledge and experience . At the same time, cross-generational learning will provide Gen Z learners with the confidence and support they need to most effectively put their new skills into practice, while accelerating their progression through access to decades-worth of shared expertise gained on-the-job through real-world scenarios. Millennials and Generation X employees also stand to benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas and expertise. For employers, this cost-effective approach can accelerate the adoption of technology to improve business resilience and boost productivity – both of which are vital to supporting the ambitions of the UK’s Industrial Strategy.
 

Engineering Apprenticeships UK: FANUC and MTC Training Success Story

A great example of how this culture can successfully boost the manufacturing talent pipeline while driving innovation is FANUC, a global leader in automation and robotics. Jack Leonard, a 20-year-old apprentice, John Strisino, a 62-year-old electrical engineer, and Neil Weaver, a 35-year-old controls engineer, are already demonstrating how cross-generational learning can redefine workplace development. FANUC’s commitment to collaborative workforce upskilling is already boosting productivity, supporting business growth and helping to tackle wider industrial challenges such as the manufacturing skills gap.

The innovation multiplier: How skill sharing strengthens manufacturing teams

Apprenticeships are a cornerstone of long-term success at FANUC. Delivered in partnership with MTC Training, these programmes combine FANUC’s hands-on, industry-led experience with MTC Training’s structured technical training and professional enrichment to create a powerful springboard for growth.

Jack is encouraged to ask questions, challenge assumptions and contribute to problem-solving discussions. The team’s flexibility allows everyone to evolve, whether they’re just starting out or decades into their career. From the outset, Jack was immersed in a culture where collaboration is more than a value – it’s a way of working. 

Meanwhile Jack’s curiosity inspires his mentors to reconsider their own practices and explore the benefits of emerging technologies. 

Baby Boomer, John, notes, 

The team’s training approach is flexible and hands-on, blending academic theory with real-world application. Jack thrives in this environment, supported by mentors who also value experiential learning. Together, they’ve built a responsive, practical training model shaped by project pace and technology. 

What are the biggest barriers to workforce upskilling in manufacturing?

Ensuring effective investment in the future of manufacturing

But many other organisations are underinvesting in their manufacturing workforce development. Skills England reported that only 54% of manufacturing employers have recently trained their workforce, while apprenticeship starts in Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies fell by 3,000 (6%) in 2023/4.

In fact, employer investment in workforce development in England more generally has reduced by approximately 20% over ten years , a trend that the Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy seeks to tackle as it aims to almost double annual business investment (including skills) in the Advanced Manufacturing sector to £39bn by 2035, to drive broader economic growth.

Making sure your employees are primed to learn effectively is also crucial to the success of any workforce upskilling programme. Despite operating in an increasingly digital world, in-person learnin g is still the most popular choice across all ages, with 40% of respondents preferring to learn face-to-face. Hands-on project-based learning and peer-to-peer mentoring are the next most favoured modes. And while it may not surprise many that the older generations snub e-learning, only 11% of Gen Z employees prefer learning solely online, signalling a clear preference for hands-on, people-focused learning, even amongst digital natives.

The apprenticeship model offers a turn-key solution to these concerns.Training providers must work closely with employers to match an apprenticeship Standard to the specific required role and associated duties. This both ensures that there is sufficient opportunity for the learner to gain hands-on practice and demonstrate competency across the required knowledge, skills and behaviours of the chosen Standard, and that they’ll deliver value and impact to their team throughout their learning journey and beyond.

Alongside this, targeted workforce upskilling through practical training in key technologies, such as automation and robotics training, can be cascaded throughout relevant teams through cross-generational learning programmes that inspire and welcome engagement at every level of the business. This helps organisations to derive greater value for money from training investments while developing an engaged and culturally aligned workforce that is primed to continually identify opportunities for innovation and modernisation.
 

Digital Transformation in Manufacturing: How Cross-Generational Learning Drives Innovation

Bridging the knowledge transfer gap

UK industrial strategy recognises that the transfer of knowledge is a critical inhibitor for innovation in the manufacturing sector. While the UK sits in fifth place in World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) 2024 global innovation index, our knowledge absorption lags much further behind, with the UK ranking 31st out of 133 countries. Alongside this, digital readiness is a constant threat, with the Government reporting that 80% of UK manufacturers find digital skills more difficult to recruit due to competition from other sectors.

When it comes to horizon scanning, 73% of manufacturing employees feel their employer is prepared to meet future skills demand. The Baby Boomers are the least optimistic about these prospects, with just over half (58%) feeling confident. And yet a quarter of Generation Z and Millennial employees say that resistance to change or reluctance to adopt new practices is a key challenge when they exchange skills with someone from a different generation. 

But deploying innovation most effectively requires a strong contextualised understanding of the associated challenges and implications, as well as the rewards – and this is dependent on having an embedded experience of the processes in question. Businesses are set to lose close to a third of their most experienced workforce in the next 20 years. A significant proportion of the UK’s manufacturing workforce is approaching retirement, with 33% of employees aged over 50 in 2024  – a challenge that will only increase due to trends in decreasing birthrates since the mid-1960’s.

So what can be done?
 

Sparking innovation through generational exchange

Cross-generational learning offers businesses an opportunity to retain decades of expertise that they will otherwise lose as their most experienced staff retire, while simultaneously developing new talent and reinvigorating those experts to adopt innovation through exposure to new ways of working from their more recently trained colleagues.

Returning to FANUC, Millennial controls engineer, Neil Weaver, explains how more experienced team members benefit from an apprentice’s fresh perspective: “Jack’s curiosity makes you pause and think – why do we do it this way? Is there a better approach? That kind of curiosity is valuable. We encourage apprentices to try things, make mistakes and learn from them…”
 

How can UK manufacturers build a resilient talent pipeline?

The UK’s manufacturing skills gap is one of the biggest barriers to growth, but it also presents a huge opportunity. By investing in engineering apprenticeships UK, upskilling workforce and cross-generational learning, employers can build a stronger, more resilient manufacturing talent pipeline.

The future of manufacturing depends on organisations that embrace innovation and collaboration, from Baby Boomers passing on decades of expertise to Gen Z and Millennials driving digital transformation in manufacturing. Together, these strategies will help UK industry stay competitive, support the UK industrial strategy, and secure long-term success in an evolving global economy.