Australia is currently experiencing an acute shortage of engineers. This is bad news considering that engineers are considered the drivers of advanced economies.
A report by Engineers Australia revealed that Australia is experiencing a scarcity of engineers in nearly all disciplines of the profession.
The shortage of engineers in Australia has been a problem for decades, so what’s different this time and what can be done to address it?
Shrinking supply cannot meet growing demand
The first difference is the vast scale of Australia’s engineering shortage. Our country currently has insufficient numbers of engineers to meet our current demand in all disciplines, except the biomedical fields.
The situation can be labelled a ‘skills shortage’ under the National Skills Commission definition, meaning entire industries could be operating at below-optimal levels because several sectors of the economy rely on engineering talent.
The second difference is the increasing demand for engineers.
This is a result of the relentless infiltration of technology into our daily lives, a burgeoning infrastructure sector, greater awareness of climate change and the resulting shift to cleaner, more sustainable energy – and much more.
In the coming years, we will need more engineers than ever. Engineers Australia estimates the future shortfall to be between 50,000 and 100,000 engineers, yet we have an insufficient number of engineers to satisfy even the current demand.
Australia is already heavily dependent on foreign engineers. Recent figures show about 70 per cent of engineers in Australia are born overseas.

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