Employability of GEES graduates: issues from the Environment Agency

Chris Thomas

Head of Business for Geoscience

What will I be talking about ? What does the Environment Agency do? What is the scale of our GEES related work? What are our issues about employability of

GEES graduates, especially geoscientists? What have we been doing to solve the

problem?

What does the Environment Agency do?

Leading body protecting and improving the environment in England and Wales

Protection, improvement and regulation of air, land and water

Largest UK employer of hydrogeologists 2nd largest UK employer of geoscientists ~13000 staff – more than 60% from a range of

GEES backgrounds

What GEES related work do we do? Environmental advice, regulation, monitoring,

protection, incidents, flood risk management Water quality and resources, conservation,

flood defence, fisheries, ecology, land quality, recreation, air quality, envt. planning

Field officers, specialist technical roles and supporting office based roles

What is the scale of the work?

350 geoscientists 1200 field officers 1300 policy and science staff 1200 environmental monitoring staff 1500 flood risk management roles plus hydrology, hydrometry, geomorphology,

land use, climate change, sustainability etc

What are our entry requirements?

Generally, a good relevant scientific degree for all GEES related roles

Geoscience / science research- traditionally needed a postgraduate degree

Flood risk management- we run a foundation degree for new starters

Further internal development training / experience before capable to work alone

Starting salaries Junior team member (generalist)-£19K

Team member (more specialist)- £24K

Technical specialist- £30K

Senior technical specialist- £38K

What issues have we had with recruitment and retention? Geoscience

Reduction in postgraduate courses and suitable applicants

High turnover of staff especially after 2-3 years- pay related

Could easily attract graduates but missing skills Increased need for extra specialist training,

previously provided by universities Spending £1.5M p.a on consultants to fill gaps

What have we done about it? Identified key capabilities for geoscientists

health and safety personal ‘behaviours’ core technical knowledge application of that knowledge to various

activities Developed linked training-internal and external-

and coaching / mentoring scheme

What were the results initially? 20% staff don’t meet entry capabilities 40% staff need supervision to do their work 40% staff under 5 years experience Significant gap in core technical abilities in

new recruits Gap in our internal training for these skills

What did we do about it?

Link to UWE to develop modular M.Sc in Environmental Management

Link to other universities for existing post grad. courses/modules

Reinforcing recruitment criteria with team leaders

Targeting improvement in core skills Developed a workforce plan

What has happened during the last year?

After 12 months, in geoscience, we have a significant improvement in core technical skills but still a way to go

TDF endorsed by the Geological Society, CIWEM and SiLC

Endorsed certificates of ‘Practising Geologist’ and Practising Environmental Regulator’

What else? Progressing adoption of the TDF and

associated training approach across the brownfield industry

Sharing our approach with the oil and gas industry

Rolling out TDFs for field officers, industry regulators, all field monitoring and appraisal, hydrology, science, policy etc

Conclusion

Reduction in the number of courses and changing syllabi at schools and universities have an impact on employers

Employers are having to fill in gaps in technical knowledge of graduates

We have particular issues in geoscience, hydrology, civil engineering and land use planning

We all need to work together to solve the problems