War for talent rife in Irish engineering sector

Biotech and renewable energy sectors seeing real lack of skills says recruiter

Despite the almost daily media diet of economic doom and gloom, specialist engineers in Ireland are still very much hot property. That's according to Cork based technical recruitment specialists CBSbutler.

The continuing success and growth of the biotech sector is leading to a real shortage of specialist skill sets in areas such as process and validation engineering, says Rachel Walters who heads up the CBSbutler's Irish operation. We have seen a big government led increase in spending on research & development and that, coupled with Ireland's success in attracting overseas biotech companies such as Wyeth Medica, Centocor and Genzyme has led to the creation of a real biotechnology hub - and therefore, a real increase in demand for staff. Additionally, increasing investment is leading to more job creation - Alcon has recently announced a ?15.6m expansion of its facility in Cork for example.

The other main area of growth is renewable energy. The government has said that they want a third of Ireland's electricity to come from renewable energy sources - and that's going to mean a huge demand for engineers with the skills necessary to work on major projects. says Rachel. To put this into context, only two electrical engineers graduated this year from UCD - and that's the only university that provides the course. Consequently we can expect to see employers following the example of the USA who are finding themselves having to fish from a far wider talent pool - and that means looking globally as well as locally.