Double the intake, and different skills

A key issue is how well prepared the industry is for ETCS from a skills and capability perspective.

“We are not prepared, is the blunt answer,” HS1 CEO Dyan Crowther told the event.

“From my experience and the data that I see, we are on a burning platform.”

Referring to comments by National Skills Academy for Rail CEO Neil Robertson (RAIL 970), she added: “We are predicting that every company in the rail sector will need to double their number of apprentices to even reach a steady-state demand.”

Crowther suggested that the industry will “need different skills that we don’t even have university courses for at the moment”.

And she said the issue isn’t with tier one contractors, as they say they can double apprentice numbers: “The issue is with the SMEs that can only offer apprenticeships that include Saturday and Sunday working, which are unattractive.

“So, we have to think a lot more collaboratively and across the breadth of the system, to get the right people in and think really hard about our entry levels as well.”