At our Skills Symposium on 21 November, NSAR will be releasing a report on the data from our 2024 survey of the rail industry workforce. The data shows that rail is still facing significant skills shortages. The workforce in rail has decreased over the last year by 9.4%, predominantly in the supply chain. We are facing a critical loss of experience and knowledge in the next seven years – the number of people leaving through retirement and other forms of attrition could be 85,000 workers by 2030.
Thursday’s Budget was relatively neutral in terms of rail and skills. It signalled some increase in infrastructure investment and confirmed the delivery of various rail projects, but offered no clear detail on the government’s infrastructure priorities or spending commitments. Skills policy was also noticeably absent, although further direction is expected once Skills England is established.
The numbers show an industry that is gently contracting and the industry reports that recruiting is feeling risky. But the numbers show us that we will need to hire tens of thousands in the next few years just to replace the people leaving. We need to hire like we are in significant growth. I acknowledge this is difficult to comprehend when your commercial situation is flat. Still, my advice to the industry is to resist the temptation to slow recruitment, as it will not only create problems for tomorrow but for today.
There are also positives in the data from the NSAR Rail Workforce Survey 2024. We have a workforce that is slightly younger this year than last and the proportion of workers aged 25 and under has increased from 4.7% in 2023 to 6.3% in 2024 (a 20% increase). Although rail remains male-dominated, the number of women working in the industry continues to rise – as does the proportion of workers from an Ethnic Minority Group.
Come to our Skills Symposium event to pick up a copy of the workforce report and hear from key industry players on latest developments.
Neil Robertson
NSAR Chief Executive