Soaring demand means jobs and pay bonanza for Midlands auto industry

SOARING demand for cars and components manufactured in the West Midlands will see a surge in jobs in the new, a new study has claimed.

The research, produced by Midland-based automotive recruitment specialist, Consilium Group, predicts more than half of employers in the sector plan to take on new staff and increase pay rates to attract the best talent.

A study comes in what is a bumper year in the automotive sector, with vehicles and components shipped to more than 100 countries, providing 11% of the total UK exports.

Partly due to this, demand is now at all time high and companies are battling with one another to secure the best workers and fulfil orders.

The Consilium report reveals that out of 28 UK firms participating in the survey, 57% expected to increase their headcount in 2015 while 52% expected to announce salary increases or bonuses. Just 14% expect to cut their workforce.

Last year alone the automotive industry built 1.5 million cars, the highest output since 2007, and attracted £2.5bn worth of investment, creating thousands of jobs. Jaguar Land Rover alone has taken on 8,000 new workers in the past three years alone.

JLR and Nissan are jointly responsible for 80% of the 200,000 increase in car production since 2001. But for Toyota, Vauxhall and Honda, production is collectively down 30% on the levels before the financial crisis.

There is, however, unprecedented demand for British cars and workmanship from countries like China and India.

Russell Tuck, director and co-founder at Consilium Group, said: “The dramatic increase in vehicle production volumes over the past four years, coupled with relentless new vehicle development has created a major increase in demand for the right specialist workers here in the Midlands.

“This year’s review has highlighted that employers are now competing for talent from a limited pool of automotive-based skill-sets and industry-specific experience. Candidates will often find themselves with multiple job offers, meaning the region’s employers not only need to compete for talent in the first place but also focus on the wider issue of staff retention.

“The benefit for the jobs market as a whole is that it’s already resulted in a hiked increase in apprenticeships and graduate intake schemes so that employers can tackle the skills shortage going forward. That’s going to be essential if the industry is to keep up its momentum and potentially great news for the West Midlands.”

However, he said there was still a need to see the supply chain developed and enhanced so automotive firms could make cars and vehicles more efficiently.

“The last thing they (manufacturers) want before exporting to Brazil is to have to import the parts from there first,” he added.

The annual salary review presents the remuneration levels of 125 separate automotive roles spread across nine career disciplines. Data has come from a combination of job seekers disclosing their current salaries, advertised vacancy salaries and actual job offers managed by Consilium Group over the past 12 months within the automotive sector.

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