<h3 class="display">Our social and environmental impact</h3><p class="body-l">We’re aware that what we do has implications for a range of stakeholders and, as responsible members of a wider community.</p>

<h3 class="display">Meet our team</h3><p class="body-l">Meet and connect with the people who make Gerrell &amp; Hard the business it is, and learn more about their specialist areas.</p>

Our History

<h2>Mission statement</h2>

<p class="body-l">Founded in 2011, Gerrell &amp; Hard is a recruitment and workforce expansion business that has become a scaleup partner to startups, market disruptors, innovators and established brands in the Technology, Engineering and Manufacturing space.&nbsp;</p><p>We are respected across Europe and beyond for outstanding leadership, expertise and results in a constantly-changing world.</p>

About <span>Gerrell &amp; Hard</span>

<h1 class="h2 display">Industry <span>insights</span></h1>

<p class="body-l">Thought-provoking articles on talent within the world of high technology.</p>

<p class="body-l">To understand your needs as a candidate we go beyond (admittedly important) considerations such as salary requirements and preferred location, to understand more about what you want to get out of your career and the values and mission you seek in an employer.</p><p class="body-l">What problems are you motivated to solve? How do you want to work? What is your motive for wanting a new challenge?</p><p class="body-l">In this way we aim to deliver true richness to our candidates and ensure we present our clients with inspired and committed people.</p>

A new level of insight

<h3 class="display">Sectors and skills</h3><p>We recruit for most technology design and manufacture roles today, from the people building innovative solutions to society’s biggest challenges, to applications that cross traditional market boundaries. Our clients include disruptive startups, established brands reimagining their product, and legacy markets.</p><p>We recruit anybody from design engineers in automotive or autonomous mobility to data specialists in manufacturing. Many of our candidates are chosen because their skills and qualities are needed to produce technologies that are in the throes of being born right now.</p>

<h4 class="display">We’re often with a candidate for their <span>entire journey</span> from entry level to leader.</h4>

<p class="bigger">Gerrell &amp; Hard’s approach to your experience as a candidate is to build a mutually beneficial, lasting relationship founded on trust and a deep understanding of what motivates and drives you.</p><p>We’ve had the pleasure, many times over, of being part of a candidate’s journey—from helping them secure their first role to having them engage us to help them build their new team. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences for a recruitment company and the clearest example we can provide of how we operate as a recruitment partner.</p>

<h3 class="display">Services</h3><p class="body-l">Our services are about one thing: ensuring you have an outstanding and enjoyable candidate experience.</p>

If it’s in tech, we’ve got it covered.

<h1 class="display"><span>Career</span> advancement</h1>

<h1 class="h2 display">Success <span>stories</span></h1>

<p class="body-l">Our growing roster of case studies provides an insight into the range of services we provide, and the names we’re proud to support.</p>

<h2>Message us</h2>

<h1 class="h2 display">Contact <span>G&amp;H</span></h1>

<p class="body-l">We’d love to hear from you. Please use the form below or the contact details provided to get in touch with us. One of our consultants will respond as soon as possible.</p>

Since 2020 we have seized the opportunity to encourage home/flexible working, giving our team more time for their lives and downsizing our offices to a sustainable office space at Pure in Port Solent whose commitment to Net Zero we admire. Pure runs on 100% renewable energy, recycles 70-80% of its waste and offers sustainable commuting.

As a carbon reduction initiative we subscribe to eForest Tree Planting, which means that for every candidate we place, a tree is planted in a community woodlands, nature reserve or community farm. eForest works hard to ensure that the trees are planted and maintained properly so that they live to maturity. Our tree planting count is below!

Our charity work reflects the interests of our employees and we’re happy to support any cause that matters to the team. We have supported charities including Naomi House and Jack’s place, participating in runs, cycles, walks, bake days and more.

Sustainable culture

Tree planting

Charity

Trees planted to date by Gerrell &amp; Hard

<p>This is a 404 error, which means you've clicked on a bad link or entered an invalid URL.</p>

<p class="body-l">Join the startups, scaleups &amp; established OEMs we’ve helped to plan and execute their workforce and hiring strategies.</p><p><b>Let’s talk.</b></p>

<h3 class="display">Success stories</h3><p class="bigger">Our expertise in onboarding, assessment centres, employer branding, attraction strategy and candidate insight has enabled many tech disruptors and challenger brands to accelerate their growth.&nbsp;</p>

Become a partner

<h4 class="display">Proud to be a growth partner to some of today’s <span>most exciting</span> tech brands.</h4>

<p class="bigger">Gerrell &amp; Hard has emerged as a leading growth partner for many of today’s most innovative challenger brands and technology disruptors, helping to take companies from startup to scaleup.</p><p>We support new brands from the outset to help them avoid the pitfalls of hiring their first generation of talent, and consult with established&nbsp;market-leaders as they diversify and modernise their technologies and products.</p><p>For emerging technology firms, the need to focus on refining and developing product and attracting investors means that planning workforce expansion and mapping talent against the skills they need to achieve their goals can be left until late in the day. This is further complicated because in today’s evolving technology markets there is no standardised blueprint for the hiring process. Even established OEMs find themselves navigating uncharted territories as they pivot into new tech.&nbsp;</p><p>Our consultation, planning and execution of workforce and hiring strategy goes far beyond recruiting new staff. We can integrate seamlessly into any phase of a client project, either spearheading the initiative or supplementing an in-house team.</p>

<h3 class="display">Services</h3><p>As growth partners, we view our role as resolving workforce challenges so that our partners can concentrate on their job of solving the big technological challenges and creating solutions&nbsp; for a better future.</p>

<h3 class="display">Services</h3><p class="body-l">As growth partners, we view our role as resolving workforce challenges so that our partners can concentrate on their job of solving the big technological challenges and creating solutions&nbsp; for a better future.</p>

Your trusted growth partner in tech recruitment

<h1 class="display"><span>Growth</span> partnership</h1>

<h3 class="display">Recruiting for a <span>positive</span> future.</h3><p>It’s important to the Gerrell &amp; Hard team that we can be proud of our social impact and environmental footprint.</p>

<h2 class="display">We're with you for the <span>journey.</span></h2>

Gerrell &amp; Hard has proven credentials as a growth partner for organisations at the forefront of technology. From facilitating disruptive startups and scale-ups to helping established OEMs pivot into new applications, our expertise allows us to identify and onboard the skillsets the sector needs in order to address society’s challenges.

All innovation shares a common denominator: talent. We source talented people for the full spectrum of high tech and engineering roles from design and development in emerging technologies to manufacture in heavy industry. We play a part in the migration of transferrable skillsets between sectors and also hire within vertical markets.

From design engineers in aerospace to data specialists in manufacture, we cover the gamut of technology, technical design, engineering and manufacture roles. In a world where market boundaries are blurring, we can find candidates the role they know they want, or uncover new career possibilities in new markets.

Growth partnership

Talent sourcing

Career advancement

<h3 class="display">Applying to HVS</h3><p class="bigger">Please apply to live vacancies (below or from the job search) or by sending us your updated CV.</p>

<h3 class="display">Applying to Volta Trucks</h3><p class="bigger">Please apply to live vacancies (below or from the job search) or by sending us your updated CV.</p>

<h1 class="h2 display">Partners</h1>

<p class="body-l">We’re honoured to act as recruitment partners to some of the most exciting technology and innovation brands in the world. In this capacity we play a significant role in identifying and hiring niche skills, workforce management and growth planning.</p>

<h3 class="mb-3">Terms and conditions</h3><ul class="w-75"><li class="body-s">Contractors must complete 13 consecutive weeks of service and permanent staff must have been in their role for 13 weeks, to the satisfaction of the client. </li><li class="body-s">The candidate you refer must either: not be registered with Gerrell &amp; Hard OR if they are already registered, have not been in contact with us in any way within the last 12 months. </li><li class="body-s">Reward claims must be made within 30 days of the start of the placement.</li><li class="body-s">Rewards will be paid once the referred candidate completes the abovementioned qualifying period. </li><li class="body-s">Gerrell &amp; Hard reserves the right to modify or terminate the Terms and Conditions of the referral scheme without notice.</li><li class="body-s">In the event of any dispute, Gerrell &amp; Hard’s decision will be final. </li></ul>

<p class="body-l ">Could you help someone to find the job that changes their life? We created our referral programme as a way of thanking people for helping their friends, family or colleagues to find their next great job by introducing them to the team here at Gerrell &amp; Hard.</p><p class="mb-4">To qualify, simply recommend a candidate to us (meeting our fairly painless terms and conditions below) and if this results in a successful placement, we’ll send you a giftcard as a thank you!</p><h3 class="mb-3">Our reward prize</h3><p class="mb-4">For a successful placement, we award £250 of Amazon vouchers.</p>

<h1 class="display mb-4" style="line-height:0.85"><small style="font-size: 0.75em">Refer a</small> <span>friend</span></h1>

<h2 class="xs-h4">Refer a friend</h2>

<p class="body-l">If you’d like us to consider you for current and future opportunities, please upload your CV so we can get started working with you.</p>

<h3 class="display">Upload <span>your CV</span></h3>

<h2 class="xs-h4">Register with G&amp;H</h2>

<h3 class="display">A full attraction strategy to launch or build a team.</h3><p>Learn more about how Gerrell &amp; Hard can act as a growth partner to tech brands and how we can help accelerate your growth through recruitment and workforce strategy.</p>

<h4 class="display">We never let anything get in the way of <span>great</span>  customer service.</h4>

<p class="body-l">Our recruitment service begins with full lifecycle contingency hiring for a one-off requirement. It can extend to an assignment to build a talented project team, or even to us becoming your long-term workforce strategy partner. </p><p>However and whatever you need us for, we’re structured to provide outstanding service and delivery first and foremost, and we ensure nothing gets in the way of that. Our team of passionate industry experts is motivated purely by customer and candidate success.</p>

<h3 class="display">Services</h3><p class="body-l">In addition to contingency recruitment, our services include:</p>

A service structured around successful delivery.

<h1 class="display"><span>Talent</span> sourcing</h1>

<p class="body-l">Gerrell &amp; Hard has good form when it comes to filling the vacancies that others can’t. Challenge us with your latest or hard-to-fill vacancy.</p>

<h3 class="display">What's your hiring <span>challenge?</span></h3>

<h3>Register a vacancy</h3>

<p class="body-l">Our outstanding recruiters enjoy doing their jobs with autonomy and freedom. We intentionally keep our team small but perfectly-formed, which gives us the responsiveness we need to provide a service we can be proud of. We rarely seek new employees, but if you think you can offer something exceptional, you’re welcome to <b>get in touch</b>.</p>

Want to join our team?

<h1 class="h2 display">Meet our <span>team</span></h1>

<p class="body-l">Meet and connect with the people who make Gerrell &amp; Hard the business it is, and learn more about their specialist areas.</p>

<h1 class="h2 display">TechTalent</h1>

<p class="body-l">Insights and opinions from the frontline of tech recruitment, from Gerrell & Hard</p>

<h2 class="display">We're with you for the <span>journey</span>.</h2>

<p>The B Corp community is booming: more than 2,400 UK companies, employing over 153,000 people, now hold the certification. But where are the engineering, tech and manufacturing firms among this lot? Industries that build, design and manufacture are underrepresented. Is it because B Corp certification is harder for these businesses to achieve, and are they missing an opportunity to stand out in an increasingly values-driven job market?</p>
<p>At Gerrell &amp; Hard, we&rsquo;ve been watching the B Corp movement with admiration. It&rsquo;s an aspirational benchmark but, lately, not without controversy. And is it the right fit for engineering and tech firms?</p>
<h3>What is a B Corp?</h3>
<p>B Corporations (B Corps) are businesses that have been certified by the non-profit organisation B Lab for meeting exceptionally high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. They are committed to delivering positive long term social impact for their community, customers and supply chain, and have strong environmental credentials.</p>
<p>The certification is intended to recognise responsible businesses, distinguishing them from those who use CSR or greenwashing merely as a marketing tool. To qualify, companies must pass the demanding B Impact assessment, demonstrating rigorous standards in those key areas.</p>
<h3>Why aren&rsquo;t there many engineering B Corps?</h3>
<p>Globally, there are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehailstone/2024/10/11/new-b-corps-standards-huge-leap-forward-says-uk-chief/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">B Corps in 162 industries</a>. In the UK there&rsquo;s a notable cluster in London, though they are, of course, everywhere. The majority of B Corps are in IT, professional services and recruitment.</p>
<p>Certain types of businesses seem to adopt B Corp status more quickly than others. Searching through the B Corp directory, it&rsquo;s clear that few engineering firms are present. The Energy sector has five B Corps, the design sector has four, the construction sector three and patent-related firms have two. Recruitment is a dominant category. Do service organisations have more to gain by demonstrating their credentials, or is it just easier for them to enter (and pass) the B Labs assessment, given the relative simplicity of their supply chain compared to businesses that build and make things?</p>
<p>There are some major barriers to certification. It&rsquo;s not a quick win&mdash;it can take up to a year for a large company to achieve&mdash;and businesses must be committed and fully engaged in the process. For startups, manufacturers, and engineering firms that have high overheads and lean structures, cost and time investment could be barriers to entry.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/d2gieabt7yziapzc9idk37h7j0w6" alt="Solar panel engineer" width="800" height="500"></p>
<h3>B Corp controversy</h3>
<p>Would the engineering and manufacturing community benefit from B Corp certification, and is it still purely a force for good? We think so, with some caveats. Critics of B Corp say the value of the accreditation has been diluted in recent years. The assessment relies on self-reporting, with high scores in some areas offsetting poor records in others. These flaws have allowed firms with questionable records to gain the certification.</p>
<p>Nestl&eacute;-owned Nespresso became a B Corp in 2022, sparking <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20240202-has-b-corp-certification-turned-into-corporate-greenwashing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">widespread backlash from the B Corp community</a>. Within two months, 30 certified B Corps signed an open letter to B Lab, condemning the decision due to Nespresso&rsquo;s history of child labour and wage theft on its coffee farms. Fair Trade soap brand Dr Bronner&rsquo;s&mdash;a signatory of the letter and longstanding B Corp&mdash;has now announced its intention to drop the certification, due to an erosion of the standard. B Labs is working to address these challenges; a raft of significant changes to its assessment is currently at consultation stage. It was also quick to launch its own <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/01/brewdog-loses-its-ethical-b-corp-certificate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation of former B Corp BrewDog</a> in response to reports of a toxic culture at the embattled brewer. It revoked the company&rsquo;s membership in 2022, but Nespresso is still a certified B Corp.</p>
<h3>Potential for employers</h3>
<p>But despite some troubling controversy, we think B Corp is admirable, and there&rsquo;s still both a moral and a business case for the standard. An accreditation elevates traditional CSR by requiring measurable impact on the environment, a broad community of stakeholders and purpose. And there&rsquo;s huge potential here for tech, engineering and manufacturing employers to show they offer a compelling career choice by combining innovation with ethical business practices.</p>
<p>Employees in our sectors are attracted to the opportunity to work on responsible tech and manufacturing, knowing their contributions drive real-world impact. They value the opportunity to be part of mission-driven teams, solving complex challenges while aligning their skills with environmental responsibility and corporate integrity. With a growing focus on decarbonisation, circular economy models and ethical supply chains, B Corps in our sectors will appeal to people seeking meaningful careers that balance innovation with sustainable success.</p>
<p>B Labs must work ceaselessly to ensure its accreditation remains authentic. But the number of B Corps is rising steadily, and the certification still looks like it brings competitive advantage. We&rsquo;ll be watching this closely.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>The UK government and Aviva Investors have committed a joint &pound;65 million investment in <a href="https://fleetworld.co.uk/boost-for-uk-on-street-charging-network-with-65m-investment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Connected Kerb</a> to expand the country&rsquo;s on-street EV charging network to 40,000 sockets&mdash;a major milestone towards the government's goal of installing 300,000 public chargers by 2030.</p>
<p>Amazon has chosen Darlington in North England as <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/amazons-prime-air-drone-service-is-headed-to-this-uk-town/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the first UK site for its Prime Air drone delivery service</a>, marking a major expansion beyond its existing operations in College Station and Phoenix, USA.</p>
<p>Lonestar Data Holdings plans to launch the first <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2025/01/22/solar-powered-data-centre-heading-lunar-surface-soon-launch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar-powered data centre to the Moon</a> in February 2025 aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.</p>

Will we see more B Corps in Engineering and Tech? 🌍

<p>As a result, leadership hiring trends now tend to favour adaptability, inclusivity and sustainability. This period of adjustment is challenging for some, but an opportunity for everyone.</p>
<p>One of the buzziest headlines in the HR media this month is the news that over 200 UK companies (accounting for over 5,000 individuals) have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jan/27/two-hundred-uk-companies-sign-up-for-permanent-four-day-working-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener">permanently implemented a four-day working week</a>, without reducing pay.</p>
<p>Those in favour of the move argue that it enhances employee retention and productivity and aligns with the preferences of younger workers who prioritise work-life balance and mental health. Those against it include Amazon and JPMorgan, whose CEO Jamie Dimon has mandated a five-day office-based working week.</p>
<h3>Shorter weeks and developmental cultures</h3>
<p>According to The Guardian, 78% of UK residents aged 18 to 34 believe a four-day working week will become standard within the next five years, while <a href="https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/about/press-room/two-thirds-of-uk-gen-zs-and-millennials-opt-for-remote-and-hybrid-working.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Deloitte research</a> has found that over three-quarters of UK Gen Zs and 71% of Millennials would consider seeking new employment if mandated to work full-time in the office.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/strategy-news/the-challenges-and-divides-in-the-uks-remote-working-experience/378475" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41% of Britons working from home either entirely or partially</a> as of last September, employers clearly need to recognise the importance of flexible work arrangements for employees.</p>
<p>But that&rsquo;s not all. Research from Gallup indicates that <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/336275/things-gen-millennials-expect-workplace.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">younger generations expect to be coached and developed in their workplace</a>, with Millennials being more likely than previous generations to seek regular feedback and opportunities for personal and professional growth. And as for the famous value-alignment factor, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/04/why-company-values-deal-breaker-next-generation-professionals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn research</a> shows that nearly 9 in 10 Gen Z-ers and Millennials in Europe would leave a job to work somewhere that better matches their values.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/i62blthadp8h5veczqg80jd5j57c" alt="" width="800" height="500"></p>
<h3>What kind of leadership do we need?</h3>
<p>From our interaction with C-Suite teams, we know that leaders today need more than technical expertise or a proven track record of success. They need the curiosity and courage to embrace change, the influence to challenge legacy practices and the vision to balance competing priorities while still driving sustainable growth.</p>
<p>This isn&rsquo;t about sweeping away everything that came before. It&rsquo;s about finding a blend that works&mdash;one that satisfies a broad group of stakeholders, from employees seeking flexibility to customers expecting innovation and shareholders demanding results.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://blog.ttisi.com/5-workforce-trends-for-leaders-in-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TTI Success Insights</a>, human-centric leadership (characterised by empathy and authenticity) are increasingly important qualities in leadership teams, with employees seeking leaders who foster diversity, purpose and personal growth. It&rsquo;s also important that leaders invest in strategies to develop staff skills in the face of emerging (perhaps even unprecedented) new roles. They must also embrace generational diversity, with Baby Boomers and Gen Z now working side by side, and each requiring different things from their employers.</p>
<p>The UK manufacturing sector faces a leadership gap as it transitions from traditional practices to digital innovation. According to <a href="https://www.madesmarter.uk/resources/how-technology-developments-in-manufacturing-demand-a-new-approach-to-leadership-and-skills/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Made Smarter research</a>, 8 in 10 manufacturers believe that effective leaders are critical to adopting new technologies or green practices that are key to the successful evolution of the sector in the future. The research points to a requirement for manufacturers to &ldquo;reorient change from the traditional top-down to the bottom-up, and perhaps the middle-out&rdquo;.</p>
<h3>Practice what you preach</h3>
<p>It follows that employers must deliver on their brand for staff as well as customers. Korn Ferry has noted an <a href="https://www.kornferry.com/insights/featured-topics/talent-recruitment/talent-acquisition-trends-2025">increasing need for Employee Value Propositions</a> (EVPs), noting that organisational culture must be part of the lived employee experience, rather than merely a promise. As it says, &ldquo;In 2025, unique human experiences will stand out in an era of automation and standardisation&rdquo;, with high churn the natural consequence of broken employer brand promises.</p>
<h3>Building success with a new leadership approach</h3>
<p>The evolving landscape of tech and manufacturing requires new approaches to leadership, and we&rsquo;ve seen as much exciting innovation in this as we have with technology itself. It&rsquo;s not easy to challenge the status quo while maintaining a solid foundation for growth, but some key considerations for leadership hiring and development include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Understanding workforce needs &ndash; Recognising that younger employees expect work-life balance, professional development opportunities and purpose-driven leadership.</li>
<li>Balancing tradition and innovation &ndash; Retaining core business strengths while embracing new ways of working, from flexible schedules to AI integration.</li>
<li>Creating an adaptive culture &ndash; Encouraging continuous learning and change management within leadership teams to remain competitive.</li>
<li>Fostering open dialogue &ndash; Building transparent, communicative and collaborative environments where employees feel valued, heard and safe.</li>
</ul>
<p id="ember1123">For tech and manufacturing businesses looking to stay ahead, now is the time to assess leadership hiring trends and ensure teams are equipped for the challenges of the modern workforce. By embracing change, fostering inclusion, and prioritising sustainability, companies can position themselves for long-term success in an ever-shifting market landscape. Businesses have been evolving into more than &ldquo;just&rdquo; places of work for some time now, but even so, this feels like an exciting moment.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Yo-Go is go: A clean transport pilot scheme in Hammersmith &amp; Fulham has seen the launch of a fleet of <a href="https://fleetworld.co.uk/electric-buggy-fleet-now-available-to-hire-in-london-borough/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">licensed electric buggies from Yo-Go</a> - with ULEZ-exemption, free parking and regenerative braking.</p>
<p>More good news for UK EV: Nissan, Jatco and the UK government have secured a &pound;50m investment to develop a <a href="https://fleetworld.co.uk/nissan-jatco-and-uk-government-strike-50m-deal-for-new-ev-site-in-sunderland/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new EV plant in Sunderland</a>, reinforcing the UK&rsquo;s position in sustainable automotive manufacturing and creating future job opportunities.</p>
<p>Norway shows the way: With 90% of its new cars now battery-powered and a goal to reach 100% electric vehicles by year-end, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg52543v6rmo" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Norway is leading the charge towards sustainability</a>.</p>

The four-day week and the changing face of leadership

<h3>A volatile year in review</h3>
<p>Against a backdrop of changing UK and US governments and global unrest, the UK economy slowed to 0.1% in the third quarter of 2024. Private sector employment declined at its fastest rate since 2009 (excluding the pandemic) with much of this attributed to rising employment costs and <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/economics/article/uk-economy-recession-fear-as-private-sector-stalls-55p56fq03?utm_source=chatgpt.com">slowing consumer demand</a>.</p>
<p>As a reliable barometer of the national economy, the UK recruitment sector has faced a tough year, with many smaller business going to the wall and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/22/hays-profits-plunge-90-as-uk-recruitment-remains-subdued" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hays announcing a 90% drop in profits</a>. Amidst talk of a &ldquo;cooling&rdquo; economy, Reed has noted <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx5w5yl2y7o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a reduction of about 26% in jobs advertised</a> on its website compared with last year, with a fall of 13% between October and November. The Autumn Budget has exacerbated the slowdown, as employers ready themselves for the planned rise in National Insurance Contributions from next April.</p>
<p>On a slightly longer timeline, the Recruitment &amp; Employment Confederation&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.personnelchecks.co.uk/latest-news/the-recruitment-slowdown-whats-happening-in-the-uk-job-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Labour Market Tracker</a> shows that permanent and temporary hires dropped sharply in 2023, making a slight recovery in 2024, but with numbers still well adrift of a peak in 2022.</p>
<h3>Resilience is the difference</h3>
<p>In a sector that is one of the first to feel the impact of declining markets, we&rsquo;ve been fortunate to be able to continue without changing how we work. It&rsquo;s a small triumph for us that we&rsquo;ve achieved modest profitability, lost no individuals from the team and maintained our core strengths. It hasn&rsquo;t been easy. While the post-pandemic resurgence was significant, making 2022/23 our most successful year on record, 2024/25 has seen us regress to 2016/17 figures (but as a much more established company) making this the most challenging year financially that we&rsquo;ve ever faced.</p>
<p>We were lucky to have some factors in our favour that have helped us limit the damage. First among those is a magnificently committed, loyal team who are happy in their work and whose values are aligned. Our resilience is a testament to our team&rsquo;s diligence, hard work, and patience. In the last few months we&rsquo;ve spoken to many clients who have similar cultures to our own, who have weathered the storm in the same way, and who likewise count their culture, values and people as their strongest assets.</p>
<h3>Our view of the market</h3>
<p>Startups, scaleups and investment-dependent businesses felt a lot of pain this year, and while larger companies weathered the challenges of 2024, they often relied on staff cutbacks.</p>
<p>Despite slowing demand for candidates in many sectors, hiring has remained consistent (in our experience at least) for hands-on professionals such as engineers, with highly skilled individuals still able to find roles quickly. Strategic, senior, or C-suite roles have been less in demand, as businesses hesitate to take risks on leadership changes. Marketing roles have followed a similar pattern, focusing more on execution than growth and strategy.</p>
<p>There are already signs that 2025 could be a better year. The Office of Budget Responsibility predicts the economy will grow, and, having seen a few green shoots of recovery amongst many of our clients, we&rsquo;re cautiously optimistic.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.gerrellandhard.co.uk/_sf/admin/categories/c1f3f5d6-c357-4457-a5e1-28674880272b/category_values/e99a7a0d-f608-497a-a013-b22e1227c46b/edit" alt=""><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/vbxq1mt7hwe01etypt1udfezm252" alt="" width="800" height="500"><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/vbxq1mt7hwe01etypt1udfezm2527a0d-f608-497a-a013-b22e1227c46b/edit" alt=""></p>
<h3>Looking ahead</h3>
<p>Despite a difficult year, we take pride in retaining the same team, who continue to work with smiles on their faces. We&rsquo;ve stayed true to Gerrell &amp; Hard&rsquo;s values, achieving sustainable growth without overreaching. We&rsquo;re ready to go again, and we look forward to what the next year will bring.&nbsp;</p>
<p>A heartfelt thank you to all our clients, candidates, followers and everyone who has worked with us this year, and not least to the wonderful Gerrell &amp; Hard team whose positivity, stability and kindness makes this business what it is, and without whom we simply wouldn&rsquo;t be here.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Drivers of the popular Mazda MX-5 Mk1 can now go electric, with <a href="https://evpowered.co.uk/news/the-electric-mazda-mx-5-is-here-thanks-to-electrogenic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a new conversion kit from Electrogenic</a>. The kit provides about 240km of range and 160bhp, providing a sustainable upgrade to a beloved classic.</p>
<p>Mercedes-Benz is exploring cutting-edge technologies, such as <a href="https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/mercedes-to-develop-solar-paint-that-could-revolutionise-electric-vehicles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar paint</a>, that could prove capable of generating enough electricity to power EVs for thousands of miles each year, minimising charging stops and emissions. The company is also investigating sustainable materials and energy-efficient AI solutions.</p>
<p>Honda has revealed plans to <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/741779/honda-solid-state-batteries-demonstration-facility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mass-produce solid-state batteries</a> at a new demonstration facility in Japan, targeting higher energy density and longer-lasting EVs by the late 2020s. The company sees solid-state batteries as the key to making EVs more affordable.</p>

2024 in review: a challenging year 📅

<h3>The growing demand for green talent</h3>
<p>Globally, demand for &ldquo;green talent&rdquo; has surged, with a 5.9% average annual increase in relevant job posts between 2021 and 2024. The UK experienced a 13% rise during this period - one of the biggest increases globally - driven by our commitment to achieving net zero by 2050. In that period, demand for green talent in the UK grew by an average of 20% per year, with a 46% rise in 2023.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But supply of talent hasn&rsquo;t matched the increasing demand. In the UK, only 12.5% of workers possess the green skills needed to ensure we meet sustainability goals and remain competitive on the global stage. And according to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/linkedin-news-uk_greenertogether-activity-7262755674659446784-G8GQ?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3Bd%2BBwQuv7T12twjM6NleoRw%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn&rsquo;s Green Skills Report</a> the disparity between green talent supply and demand is widening: by 2030, the global talent gap is expected to reach 18.7% and by 2050, the gap could exceed 100% if current trends continue.</p>
<p>The demand for green skills isn&rsquo;t limited to a single sector: gaps exist in areas as diversely &ldquo;green&rdquo; as forestry, ecology, sustainability management and electrification.</p>
<p>Bridging this gap will require significant investment in education, training, and upskilling, more collaborations between government and the private sector, and widespread promotion of entry routes into green careers, such as apprenticeships and the variety of STEM degrees that can lead to environmental and clean energy roles.</p>
<h3>Green careers: a solid choice</h3>
<p>Green careers focus on protecting or restoring the environment and addressing climate change. As industries work to adapt their products and processes&mdash;such as using renewable energy or improving energy efficiency&mdash;new opportunities are emerging.</p>
<p>These jobs are in high demand and provide the chance to contribute to the fight against climate change while helping to drive economic growth. They offer long-term career opportunities in a rapidly expanding sector.</p>
<p>Job seekers with green skills or job titles enjoy a 54.6% higher hiring rate compared to the general workforce, whilst relevant skills on the rise in the UK including building performance, decarbonisation and low-carbon technologies, responsible sourcing and environmental studies.</p>
<p>A Hays study has found that 50% of UK professionals are open to pursuing careers in sustainability, with 25% actively seeking roles in this sector. But despite growing interest in sustainability-related roles across a variety of industries, challenges include a lack of clear career pathways and limited access to relevant training.</p>
<p>Regardless of the source, all industry and government reports highlight the same critical need: focused training and development to bridge the green skills gap and build a sustainable workforce for the future, with clearer (and more) pathways into green careers.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/pf816bb60fla4lr782u2fvzkcgt0" alt="" width="800" height="500"></p>
<h3>Opportunities and challenges</h3>
<p>Green careers are at the heart of the UK&rsquo;s transition to a sustainable future. Industries such as renewable energy, sustainable construction, and environmental management are expanding rapidly, contributing significantly to employment, wealth creation and economic resilience. The UK is a global leader in offshore wind, with thousands of jobs created to design, build, and maintain wind farms, while green technologies like EVs are driving growth in manufacturing and engineering, as the automotive industry pivots to meet the government&rsquo;s 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars.</p>
<h3>The Future of Green Careers in the UK</h3>
<p>As the UK works towards its net-zero target, the demand for green jobs will only increase. From environmental scientists and renewable energy engineers to sustainability consultants and EV technicians, the opportunities are vast and varied. Green hold the key to economic growth, environmental preservation, and social progress. By embracing these opportunities and investing in the workforce of tomorrow, the UK can lead the way in building a sustainable and prosperous future for all.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>A study of more than 7,000 electric cars by P3 has revealed that <a href="https://www.electrive.com/2024/11/24/new-study-shows-ev-batteries-last-much-longer-than-expected/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EV batteries last longer than expected</a>, with many maintaining over 90% capacity after 100,00 km.</p>
<p>Rivian and Volkswagen have sealed a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/12/the-rivian-volkswagen-joint-venture-deal-is-now-up-to-5-8b/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$5.8 billion partnership</a> to create next-generation EV software and electrical architecture. This joint venture aims to cut costs, enhance scalability, and power the launch of new models for both brands by 2027.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The UK Government has announced a <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/11/13/uk-governments-ps500m-skills-drive-support-next-generation-engineers-and-scientists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&pound;500m fund to support nearly 5,000 science students</a> at 45 universities, in a bid to boost high-demand skills for the UK.</p>

Green Careers are increasing, but is it enough? 🌍

<p id="ember921" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">The sport now features eleven teams and 22 drivers racing 100% electric cars, the latest of which can reach speeds of about 200mph. Sponsorship for 2023-2024 is valued at <a class="app-aware-link " href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240417-formula-e-the-worlds-fastest-electric-vehicles-could-spark-widespread-innovation" target="_self" data-test-app-aware-link="">&pound;81.36m</a>, with a global audience of 344 million.</p>
<h3 id="ember922" class="ember-view reader-text-block__heading-3">Conceived in the lab, made on the track</h3>
<p id="ember923" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">Given that it was created as a showcase and a testing ground for innovation in sustainable powertrains, it&rsquo;s no surprise that Formula E has evolved by leaps and bounds in its first ten years. It is a microcosm and a driver of progress, and the technology tested and refined within the sport has had already had measurable impact on the electric vehicle (EV) industry.</p>
<p id="ember924" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">Notably, manufacturers like <strong>Nissan </strong>and <strong>Jaguar Land Rover</strong> have seen demonstrable return from their involvement in this technological playground, with <a class="app-aware-link " href="https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/500865" target="_self" data-test-app-aware-link="">track-proven advancements making their way into various stages of production EVs</a>. A competitor since Season 5, Nissan has used its experience in FE to significantly improve the <em>Nissan Leaf</em>. The car's battery capacity and range have both increased by just over 180%. Jaguar joined FE in 2016, and has applied racing insights to improve its road cars' energy efficiency. It achieved these gains using predictive energy optimisation techniques based on FE drivers' on-track racing strategies.</p>
<div class="reader-image-block reader-image-block--full-width"><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/cpikpmxfuzleev34r7e2k8h8oltv" alt="" width="800" height="500"></div>
<h3 id="ember926" class="ember-view reader-text-block__heading-3">Charging forward</h3>
<p id="ember927" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">And of course, there&rsquo;s a duality in FE: it&rsquo;s not just about engine innovation, it&rsquo;s also about charging infrastructure. The batteries used by passenger EVs won&rsquo;t cut it in race situations: the ability to maintain peak performance over a long distance is critical. Petrol or diesel-powered cars don&rsquo;t need a full tank to hit top speed, but road EVs start to slow as their battery charge runs down. For obvious reasons, FE batteries must also be lightweight and capable of ultra-fast charging.</p>
<p id="ember928" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">Driven by such imperatives, the improvements in charging technology are among the more noteworthy achievements of FE, with brands like WAE, McLaren, and Lucid Motors all highly invested in designing and refining high-performance batteries. The batteries may be costly but the investment is worthwhile for suppliers. Batteries are big business, and related innovations developed on the track, such as immersion cooling and fast-charging techniques, are patentable and could see their way into the broader EV industry.</p>
<h3 id="ember929" class="ember-view reader-text-block__heading-3">Why FE feels so different to other race series</h3>
<p id="ember930" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">There&rsquo;s a difference in the way fans think about F1 and FE. F1 has long been a marketing platform driven by enthusiasm for racing; a &ldquo;look what we can do&rdquo; for petrolheads, characterised by aspirational glamour.</p>
<p id="ember931" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">And although positive peer pressure within the sport has seen F1 mitigate its environmental impact through a variety of incremental improvements and a bold sustainability plan - offsetting travel and implementing efficiency measures like KERS systems for starters - it was never meant to be a comprehensive solution for advancing sustainable technology. &nbsp;FE was launched with a clear plan to accelerate innovation and tackle emerging challenges head on.</p>
<h3 id="ember932" class="ember-view reader-text-block__heading-3">Commercial and kind?</h3>
<p id="ember933" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">FE has shown that it&rsquo;s possible to create a motorsport that is both a huge commercial draw and a source of sustainable technology. The racing has evolved and the sport&rsquo;s cultural impact is growing. The lifecycle for technological advancements in this space is accelerating, and FE is a testing ground for technologies that are difficult to trial or replicate in a lab environment.</p>
<p id="ember934" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">A growing number of companies are now involved in both F1 and FE, but it&rsquo;s likely the two sports will remain distinct, as are their unique challenges. F1 must continue to evolve its sustainability&nbsp; credentials. And for FE, with investors keen to see a return, the sport must remain entertaining while continuing to drive innovation and improvements. It must also work hard on its messaging, because it&rsquo;s critical for the automotive industry that audiences understand how progressive technological innovation is as much a part of FE as fast cars and improving lap times. That is the unique magic of the sport, and the key to the role it plays in bringing green technologies to the forefront of public discourse.</p>
<p id="ember935" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">And there are still more innovations to look forward to in FE, such as the introduction of four-wheel-drive systems and the expansion of international racing. So here&rsquo;s to Formula E and its tenth season: more power to this vital and important test bed for innovation in sustainable technology.</p>
<hr class="reader-divider-block__horizontal-rule">
<h2 id="ember937" class="ember-view reader-text-block__heading-2">What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p id="ember938" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">Vintage design meets new tech with <a class="app-aware-link " href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/24/this-new-uk-startup-is-building-classic-style-cars-with-a-modern-ev-twist/" target="_self" data-test-app-aware-link="">UK startup Spirit EV</a>. Founded by RBW, the company specialises in creating classic-style cars with a modern electric upgrade, offering EV-as-a-service. Definitely one to watch.</p>
<p id="ember939" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">The UK has unveiled plans for new <a class="app-aware-link " href="https://futuretransport-news.com/uk-announces-new-green-shipping-corridors/" target="_self" data-test-app-aware-link="">'green shipping corridors</a>,' committing up to &pound;9 million to establish zero-emission sea routes and create green jobs. The initiative aims to make international shipping more sustainable, enhancing routes to key destinations such as Amsterdam and Dublin.</p>
<p id="ember940" class="ember-view reader-text-block__paragraph">Cornish Lithium is poised to launch a &pound;15m demonstration plant in Cornwall, a major milestone in the UK's clean energy transition. The facility will produce <a class="app-aware-link " href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm28mg3zkmxo" target="_self" data-test-app-aware-link="">lithium hydroxide</a>, essential for electric vehicle batteries, helping to decrease reliance on imported resources.</p>

Here’s to ten seasons of Formula E! 🔋

<p>The main benefit of the subscription model over traditional leasing is greatly increased flexibility: subscribers can adjust their term length, switch vehicles within a given range of models, use a car for a limited period or sample new brands or forms of propulsion without committing to ownership.</p>
<h3>Who are the players in the market?</h3>
<p>The majority of subscription providers today are rental companies or independent providers: Mycardirect, Wagonex, Cocoon and <a href="https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/the-best-car-subscription-providers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many more</a>. But as evidence mounts that subscription appeals to consumers, traditional vehicle manufacturers will aim to dominate the market. And the change is coming: Jaguar Land Rover has its own subscription service called Pivotal; Volvo has thrown its hat into the ring with Care by Volvo; Genesis offers a subscription service called Flexibility and Hyundai launched Mocean in 2021 (it also owns Genesis). Renault and Nissan have limited offerings that are likely to evolve. But as with all major innovations in passenger vehicles, there are still barriers to mass adoption.</p>
<h3>What needs to improve?</h3>
<p>Consumer quibbles with the service are mostly to do with the restricted product choices on offer. Buy a car from a factory and you can get exactly what you want (or what you can afford) while the level of customisation available through subscriptions is limited. And subscription is predominantly available for premium vehicles, or aligned to the premium price-point, putting it out of reach for many. As with so many recent innovations, the market is top-down: wealthier consumers are the proving ground, before the product crosses into the mainstream and sees widespread adoption.</p>
<p>But subscription is also an enabler. It&rsquo;s shaping up to be a key entry point for consumers who are reticent about the electric vehicle (EV) market, which makes perfect sense: there are plenty of drivers who&rsquo;d like to dip their toe into the EV market without committing to buying an electric car outright. Combine the inevitability of all-out EV adoption with mixed publicity about the ease and reliability of charging, for instance, and it&rsquo;s easy to see why many people might appreciate the ability to explore EVs with minimal commitment and no long-term contract in sight.</p>
<h3>The future landscape for subscription</h3>
<p>The trend towards subscription models will almost certainly mirror the adoption of EVs. &nbsp;Younger generations, who tend to prefer flexibility and &ldquo;turn on/turn off&rdquo; services, are particularly drawn to subscription models. OEMs stand to gain competitive advantage if they can move quickly to meet this demand.</p>
<p>One of the key challenges they will face is getting the right vehicle models into the subscription market at speed, especially given the logistical difficulties involved. And then there&rsquo;s the problem of wear and tear: cars in subscription fleets are driven hard for a few months and then passed on to the next customer, who does the same. As the subscription model evolves, we might see a shift towards more modular cars that can be customised and adapted for the next user. This could help mitigate the impact of wear and tear and make cars more sustainable.</p>
<p>We also expect to see a rise in used cars being funnelled into subscription models; this is beneficial for price sustainability, and could reduce the cost of entry, paving the way for more widespread adoption. Notions of car ownership will change, particularly for those living in cities like London, where cars might not be needed all year round. A wealthy holidayer might want to subscribe to a Land Rover for three months to explore the countryside during the summer, rather than owning a car full-time.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/truqyiz1tx7l2y6de8apz8m3v7zi" alt="" width="800" height="500"></p>
<h3>Changing buyer behaviours</h3>
<p>The process of purchasing a car is changing, and with it, consumers&rsquo; perception of what it means to acquire a car. <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/research-commentary/2024/car-subscription-poised-to-increase-as-research-shows-strong-con.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PwC UK research</a> reveals that nearly half of UK consumers would prefer a car subscription model over traditional purchasing or financing &ndash; that&rsquo;s a pretty rapid adoption rate for a relatively new service that some people still haven&rsquo;t heard of.</p>
<p>A movement towards adoption of EVs is accompanied by a rise in cars being configured and purchased online. Throw subscription into the mix and it&rsquo;s likely that pretty soon, we&rsquo;ll be thinking about cars almost as we do phones. We&rsquo;ll browse and click; the product will be disposable and convenient. Perhaps the day will come when nobody would dream of owning a car, which brings its share of inconvenience and upkeep.</p>
<p>As subscription takes off, it will cause a re-evaluation of the design and manufacturing cycle. Manufacturers will need to adjust their R&amp;D, logistics, aftermarket support and supply chains to manage brand-owned subscription fleets. And in turn, we&rsquo;ll see a corresponding investment in skills and infrastructure to maintain the vehicles. Look out as other big manufacturers like Audi, Ford and Volkswagen enter the space: the winners will be the brands that offer the right mix of product range, price point and customisation.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Robot company <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/11/24241353/nuro-robotaxi-personal-owned-autonomous-vehicle-license" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nuro is set to expand its business model</a> to include robotaxis and autonomous vehicles, licensing its autonomous driving technology to car companies.</p>
<p>Amazon Web Services is set to <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/09/11/amazon-web-services-spend-ps8bn-build-uk-data-centres" target="_blank" rel="noopener">invest &pound;8bn in UK data centres</a> over the next five years, creating 14,000 jobs and contributing an estimated &pound;14bn to the UK economy. This significant investment will bolster the country's expanding cloud and AI industries.</p>
<p><a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/08/30/uks-first-intercity-battery-powered-train-begins-passenger-testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The UK&rsquo;s first intercity battery-powered train</a> has started passenger testing on routes between York, Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Over the next eight weeks, tests will evaluate the train's potential to reduce emissions, fuel costs, and noise pollution, with the ability to run up to 100km on 100% battery power.</p>

Car Subscriptions: The Future of Driving Flexibility?

<p>We&rsquo;ve seen this happen successfully in maturer markets like China and the US, where AVs have clocked millions of miles in trials. But the legislation has to come first. And while our market has lagged behind these world-leaders, the UK&rsquo;s Automated Vehicles Act 2024 has set the stage for self-driving vehicles to be on British roads by 2026.</p>
<h2>Paving the way for change</h2>
<p>The Act introduces an authorisation regime for self-driving cars, with stringent safety standards, legal accountability frameworks, and information-gathering powers for monitoring compliance. It distinguishes between vehicles with "user-in-charge" features and those without, establishing clear rules for both, and addresses marketing restrictions to prevent misleading promotions of self-driving capabilities.<br>It's already thought that AVs could bolster the logistics industry by improving efficiency, reducing costs, and addressing driver shortages. But the wider economic impact could be huge. From 2018 to 2022, the AV sector attracted &pound;475 million in investment and led to the creation of 1,500 new jobs. The government projects it could be worth &pound;42 billion and generate 38,000 skilled jobs by 2035.</p>
<h2>Do we need to fear AV?</h2>
<p>Consumers may feel hesitant to embrace passenger AVs, but safety is one of the big drivers &ndash; pun intended &ndash; behind automation: human error is the leading cause of road traffic accidents. Furthermore, other applications adopting this technology, but a safer distance from public highways, are theoretically a useful proving-ground for the full suite of autonomous technology and attendant services.</p>
<p><img src="https://cdn.sourceflow.co.uk/us9gm2jb7sww5qmxm3i4lprbhatv" alt="" width="800" height="500"></p>
<h2>Some brands to watch</h2>
<p>This is a market with bags of potential, but still in its infancy. We know from experience that new markets fluctuate, stutter, experience periods of sudden expansion that create winners and losers alike. There&rsquo;s plenty of exciting stuff happening here, with a huge number of players to watch. Here are just a few:</p>
<h3>Wayve</h3>
<p>Founded in 2017, UK AI startup <a href="https://wayve.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wayve</a> offers an adaptive, situation-based driving system for autonomous cars based on end-to-end machine-learning algorithms and computer vision. &nbsp;Sensationally, Wayve has acquired an investment of over $1 billion, backed by Japan&rsquo;s SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft. It&rsquo;s the biggest investment in a European AI startup to date.</p>
<p>Wayve will use its funds to develop the first embodied AI technology, which enables automated vehicles to learn from and interact with a real-world environment, including unexpected situations and actions from drivers or pedestrians. Wayve&rsquo;s technology is currently integrated into six vehicle platforms as advanced driver assistance systems, including the Jaguar I-Pace and the Ford Mustang MachE.</p>
<h3>Five AI</h3>
<p>Founded in 2015 and acquired by Bosch in 2022, <a href="https://www.five.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Five AI</a> is creating an autonomous driver system which doesn&rsquo;t need to run on navigation 3D maps, instead using LiDAR and other sensors, deep learning and motion planning systems to drive autonomously.</p>
<h3>Oxa</h3>
<p>Founded in 2014, <a href="https://oxa.tech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oxa</a> (formerly Oxbotica) has a software platform and cloud-based management tools, which it calls Universal Autonomy&trade;, that allow any vehicle to be self-driving. It has already garnered an impressive collection of firsts, including the <a href="https://oxa.tech/news-and-insights/europe-first-zero-occupancy-autonomous-vehicle-journey-on-road-completed-by-oxbotica/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first zero-occupancy autonomous vehicle journey</a> on publicly-accessible roads in Europe, in 2022.</p>
<h3>Muddy Machines</h3>
<p>A developer of AI-driven robotic technology designed for farmers, <a href="https://www.muddymachines.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Muddy Machines</a> specialises in autonomous field robots that are provided as Robots-as-a-service. Equipped with custom harvesting tools and machine learning capabilities to detect, monitor, and harvest crops, these operate on battery power, offering an efficient solution for modern agriculture.</p>
<h3>StreetDrone</h3>
<p>A provider of autonomous delivery vehicles, <a href="https://www.streetdrone.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StreetDrone</a> offers a comprehensive hardware and software integration platform for creating street-ready self-driving cars. The brand aims to make port operations more efficient, safer and more affordable, and facilitates the development, deployment, and testing of self-driving software using the street-legal Renault EV framework, equipped with built-in sensors and computational hardware, known as the StreetDrone ONE.</p>
<h3>Aurrigo</h3>
<p>A developer of self-driving vehicles designed for airport baggage handling and passenger transport. <a href="https://aurrigo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aurrigo</a>&rsquo;s PodZero is an autonomous, on-demand pod for first and last-mile transportation that enhances mobility in urban areas, shopping malls, airports, and university campuses. The company also offers a customer booking app, allowing users to request rides while enabling businesses to provide personalised deals along the route.</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Amazon is one of six organisations selected by the Civil Aviation Authority to trial &ldquo;beyond visual line of sight&rdquo; (BVLOS) drone flights - where operators are not required to keep drones within visual range. As a result, the retail giant could <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/amazon-drone-delivery-uk-air-b2596466.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deliver small packages by drone</a>, by the end of this year.</p>
<p>In other drone-related news, a joint study by Australia&rsquo;s RMIT and Bristol University found that a Nankeen Kestrel - a small falcon - moves its head less than 5mm while hovering over prey. The discovery, based on wind tunnel tests, could pave the way for <a href="https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kestrel-flight-stability-could-inform-design-of-drones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">improved drone stability and manoeuvrability</a>, especially in turbulent conditions.</p>
<p>And it's good to see that the UK has <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/08/16/uk-has-europes-greenest-bus-fleet-figures-show-surge-uptake" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the greenest bus fleet in Europe</a>, according to the SMMT.</p>

Are we about to see a transport revolution? AVs in the UK. 🚘

<h3>Green hydrogen powers parts of the festival</h3>
<p>Energy: it&rsquo;s always a talking point at Goodwood, but the focus is normally on how we can sustainably power vehicles. This year, it was all about how the event itself was powered. Typically, off-grid energy for events like Goodwood rely on diesel generators, but at FoS 2024, renewable energy company GeoPura partnered with Siemens to showcase commercial green hydrogen power - and used it to run sections of the festival. Hydrogen provided emission-free charging for the Honda E and the Siemens&rsquo; E-Chopper, as well as clean power in some zones including the First Glance Paddock. As far as we&rsquo;re aware, this is the first time that a big Goodwood talking point has been about the powering of the event itself.</p>
<h3>New cars galore!</h3>
<p>Where to start? There were plenty of eye-catching cars at Goodwood, but for sheer chutzpah, Red Bull&rsquo;s RB17 was hard to beat. The track-only 1200 hp monster was designed by Adrian Newey, the renowned and highly-compensated designer behind Red Bull&rsquo;s F1 car. The RB17 isn&rsquo;t road-legal and only 50 will be made, with lap speeds about the same as F1 cars and a top speed of 217 mph. Eeek.</p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCQcnLSslVw?si=FC-a4QY6otfY8lG5" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<p>Land Rover&rsquo;s top-end Defender OCTA also made a splash at the festival &ndash; appropriately, since its &ldquo;Wade&rdquo; mode allows it to travel safely through up to a metre of water. It&rsquo;s the quickest, meanest, &nbsp;most amped-up Land Rover ever, with a 0-60 time of 3.8 seconds, an impressive selection of driving modes and the ability to handle almost any terrain. Its stellar off-road performance was honed by nearly 14,000 engineering tests.</p>
<p>Another eye-catcher for us was the BMW M5, the first hybrid iteration of the model, with variable all-wheel drive (and steering), brutal performance and apparently more tech than most of us would expect to find in one place. It also features a sound system from our friends at Bowers &amp; Wilkins.</p>
<h3>Electric Vehicles</h3>
<p>We saw the largest-ever presence of EVs at this year&rsquo;s festival, including <a href="https://www.gerrellandhard.co.uk/insights/electric-vehicles-the-cost-of-the-china-conundrum-techtalent-march-24/">Chinese brands</a> Jaecoo, BYD and Yangwang (remember when we made a note to look out for Chinese brands in an earlier newsletter?). For the G&amp;H team one of the standouts was Polestar&rsquo;s presence, with its series 3 and 4 cars and an amazing Concept BST; a racey take on the Polestar 6 concept that looks and feels like the future of automotive.</p>
<h3>The Future Lab...and other futures</h3>
<p>The Future Lab (presented by Randox in 2024) is described by Goodwood as a &ldquo;hub of revolutionary innovations and inspiring ideas...(which) celebrates technology for a better tomorrow&rdquo;. This year the tech showcase embraced four themes: Protecting the Planet, Robots to the Rescue, Future of Flight and Our World in Pixels. The lab is a hub where you can rub shoulders with some of the world&rsquo;s greatest innovators, and one of many highlights was Shadow Robot, which is collaborating with Google DeepMind on its new robotic hand. Meanwhile, the Indy Autonomous Challenge returned for its second year with the AV-24, the first fully-autonomous race car, piloted by the PoliMOVE-MSU team, while Durham University&rsquo;s DUSC2023 solar car - designed and built by students - completed Goodwood&rsquo;s famous Hill Climb. To do so, it faced gradients twice as steep as any it encountered in its celebrated coast-to-coast, solar-powered crossing of Australia. The team also showed off its new solar racing car, Ortus-T, which it will race in Belgium this year.</p>
<h3>A VAN wins the shootout!</h3>
<p>That a van won the Hill Climb &ndash; Goodwood&rsquo;s famous mini-race &ndash; was a big talking point this year. But this was no ordinary van; it was Ford&rsquo;s electric SuperVan 4.2, with 1,400 horsepower and Romain Dumas inside it.</p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0G6ddGc3E1I?si=s4Ro_MyHdocRmDpm" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<h3>FoS 2024 highlights</h3>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V6ClYrpUM3c?si=IT8KqhsbEf0WX_Ff" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qeEQRkg5xGQ?si=t-4vA4O7hZBD-l-w" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EEK6DVCGrbQ?si=ATyuMSXyfeD1rJt4" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-J2kEwbfkw?si=QapQcCdsfx0qei4g" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Oxford Ionics has introduced a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxq789931go" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revolutionary quantum computing chip</a>, which could lead to the development of the world's first practical quantum computer within three years.</p>
<p>Meet Daisy, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/14/helixx-wants-to-bring-fast-food-economics-and-netflix-pricing-to-evs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Helixx&rsquo;s 3D-printed prototype van</a> that could revolutionise last-mile delivery, and is inspired by the process-following modus operandi of McDonald&rsquo;s.</p>
<p>According to researchers at Chalmers University, nearly all flights under 750 miles could be <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/07/11/hydrogen-powered-aircraft-could-service-all-flights-under-750-miles-2045" target="_blank" rel="noopener">powered by hydrogen by 2045</a>. Hydrogen-powered aviation offers substantial potential for decarbonisation, with the possibility of commercial flights in Sweden as early as 2028.</p>

Our highlights from the Goodwood Festival of Speed 🏁

<p>That&rsquo;s why the recruitment industry is an early adopter of technology. Nobody&rsquo;s got enough bandwidth. First automation, and now AI, have been embraced by in-house and external recruiters in an effort to streamline hiring processes.</p>
<p>For a long time now, automation tools have facilitated volume recruitment. They&rsquo;re nothing new. But AI is different, and since it promises enormously enhanced efficiencies it can appear a promised land. Right now, AI seems to benefit recruiters more than candidates, and not that much.</p>
<h3>Pros and cons of AI in hiring today</h3>
<p>AI can communicate with jobseekers and guide them through a hiring process using chatbots to answer their questions. It can scan CVs and deliver custom tests to measure candidates&rsquo; cognitive abilities. It can predict a candidates&rsquo; future job performance and cultural fit, or analyse video interviews to assess their body language, verbal cues and communication skills.</p>
<p>Hirers and recruiters use AI to reduce the time taken to reach candidates, bring them into the hiring funnel and facilitate the early stages of assessment and selection. Any process where data aids decision-making is ripe for AI. But many of the hiring managers we&rsquo;ve spoken to are frustrated with these applications, and they certainly don&rsquo;t align with the Gerrell &amp; Hard business model.</p>
<p>There are some small wins to be gained from AI that we&rsquo;re more comfortable with. It can simplify tasks like creating vacancy adverts from job descriptions. There&rsquo;s space in this activity for human intervention: recruiters can refine and shape, weigh up and decide what content will help job seekers make informed decisions. Some job boards are now building this technology into their platform. (LinkedIn&rsquo;s AI enhancements, designed to facilitate recruitment, currently add little value and feel more like early experimentation).</p>
<h3>AI and ethics</h3>
<p>But there are ethical questions about AI. Does it dehumanise a quintessentially human process? Do we understand enough about bias in algorithms? AI is designed to mitigate bias in recruitment; in theory it&rsquo;s less prejudiced than people when selecting candidates or scanning CVS. But it&rsquo;s only as good as the data sets used to train its algorithms. If these aren&rsquo;t representative and continually and carefully refreshed, historical bias can become ever-more ingrained in the technology.<br>There&rsquo;s also the question of transparency and consent: do people understand when they&rsquo;re being adopted into an AI-driven process, and are they being offered the chance to consent?</p>
<h3>Is AI the end of recruitment?</h3>
<p>There have been several moments where technology was deemed to signal the end of recruitment as we know it: firstly with job boards, then LinkedIn and Indeed. But they, and tech stacks such as Applicant Tracking Systems, haven&rsquo;t managed to replace the human side of finding, qualifying and nurturing candidates, or fulfilling employer assignments. As things stand, if you&rsquo;re not very good at recruitment, AI won&rsquo;t help you much.</p>
<p>AI isn&rsquo;t great on context and nuance in communication, and it can&rsquo;t empathise with human experience and subjectivity. It&rsquo;s hard to imagine a world where we don&rsquo;t need human oversight at the most critical points of the hiring process: you just can&rsquo;t have a piece of technology making decisions about who gets the job.&nbsp;</p>
<p>We&rsquo;ve seen some clients adopt AI where they can, only to meet with frustration. The technology is at the start of a huge development curve, and most of it does little more than insert bots into an already-automated process, further dehumanising it when there are plenty of decent CRM systems and other tools that can help people to do a better job.&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Our take on AI</h3>
<p>The biggest drivers in the adoption of AI in hiring are time, volume and cost. There&rsquo;s no doubt there will be some big success stories in the future where people use AI to hire, especially for high-volume, low-skill requirements.</p>
<p>But for Gerrell &amp; Hard, AI will only ever be a tool that helps eliminate some of the more laborious tasks of recruitment. It won&rsquo;t replace the part of our jobs that we most enjoy: the bit where we build and sustain relationships and partnerships with people, add value and understand what people want. It won&rsquo;t change the things that define our brand.</p>
<p>Many jobseekers today look for a connection with their prospective employer, an alignment of values and a sense that a job isn&rsquo;t just a way to pay the bills. For us, AI has to add value for everyone, not just hirers. We haven&rsquo;t lost any business yet as a result of not adopting it into our processes. We&rsquo;re watching the market, and we&rsquo;re interested in how AI can facilitate authentic, human experience rather than try to replace it.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<hr>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Code First Girls, a provider of free coding courses for women, has <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/06/19/code-first-girls-has-taught-200000-women-coding-free-bid-plug-diversity-and-tech-skills" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exceeded 200,000 graduates</a>. Their mission is to address the gender gap and tech skills shortage by making tech education accessible and linking women with tech job opportunities.</p>
<p>Algae-powered microscopic robots developed by engineers at UC San Diego can deliver &nbsp;cancer drugs directly to lung tumours, and have demonstrated potential in mice. They could enhance treatment for <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/06/13/swimming-microrobots-deliver-cancer-fighting-drugs-directly-metastatic-lung-tumours" target="_blank" rel="noopener">metastatic lung cancer</a>, which is notoriously difficult to manage.</p>
<p>Starting in 2024, all new vehicles sold in Europe, including the UK, will be equipped with <a href="https://www.autotrader.co.uk/content/news/mandatory-speed-limiters-on-uk-cars-from-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mandatory speed limiters</a>.&nbsp;</p>

Villain 🦹‍♀️, hero 🦸‍♀️, or neither? AI in recruitment.

<p>It&rsquo;s timely, because Monday marks the beginning of Volunteers&rsquo; Week 2024: an opportunity to recognise the impact of volunteering in the community. It&rsquo;s the 40th anniversary of this special week, which was established by Volunteering England when Wham! and Cyndi Lauper were in the charts. The week also raises awareness about the benefits becoming a volunteer, and the diverse volunteering roles that are available.</p>
<h3>Why Volunteer?</h3>
<p>According to The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (now the custodian of this annual celebration) <a href="https://volunteersweek.org/about-volunteers-week/why-is-volunteering-important/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over 14 million people in the UK volunteered</a> through a group, club or organisation in 2021/22. Moreover, the NCVO estimates that over 50% of the UK population was involved in less visible &ldquo;informal volunteering&rdquo;, such as supporting friends or neighbours with shopping, childcare and so on. Imagine if social and broadcast media focused more on data like this&mdash;and the stories behind the data. Quite a tonic to the doom-scrolling that&rsquo;s become a habit for many.</p>
<p>Volunteering is good for us. According to the Mental Health Foundation, &ldquo;there is some evidence that when you help others, it can <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/articles/what-are-health-benefits-altruism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promote physiological changes</a> in the brain linked with happiness...helping others can also improve our support networks and encourage us to be more active. This, in turn, can improve our self-esteem.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Altruism makes us feel good, and volunteering also provides plenty of opportunity for people to gain new skills, new experiences, increase confidence and widen their social circle.</p>
<p>Volunteering is also a big draw for employers. The <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=98914&amp;section=_unit9.3.1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charity Timebank</a> reports that 73% of employers would employ a candidate with volunteering skills over one without, while 58% of employers say that voluntary work experience can actually be more valuable than experience gained in paid employment.</p>
<h3>Volunteering as a benefit</h3>
<p>At a time when Environmental, Social and Governance metrics are increasingly significant for employers and jobseekers alike, providing opportunities for employees to volunteer on work time (corporate volunteering) is an in-demand benefit.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Not only does it allow individuals to develop and enhance skills that benefit everyone, but it also boosts morale and provides a relief from the stress of the daily grind. <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1746151/why-staff-volunteering-is-more-vital-now-than-ever" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Past research suggests</a> that 80% of employees who participated in volunteering said it made them feel happier as a result, with 100% saying it made them feel proud to work for their employer.</p>
<p>The skills people develop whilst volunteering needn&rsquo;t only be the expected ones like project management and teamwork&mdash;which are, in any case, enormously valuable. There are plenty of volunteering opportunities where participants can deploy, develop or improve niche skills including IT support, marketing and professional communications, fundraising, governance, leadership and mentoring. That&rsquo;s chiefly because many charities, social impact and community support organisations welcome (and indeed rely on) voluntary support and trusteeships from professionals with the skillsets they can't always afford to have in house.</p>
<h3>Volunteering as a professional</h3>
<p>Many employability charities with regional presence, such as The Prince&rsquo;s Trust, benefit greatly when local employers offer young or disadvantaged people mentoring or exposure to new careers and skills. Helping to inspire and boost the confidence of people who haven&rsquo;t enjoyed the advantages that many of us take for granted is a fantastic way to add value to our community.</p>
<p>And although we can&rsquo;t all afford to volunteer during periods of redundancy, those who can find that adding value to communities on their own time can be transformative, as for <a href="https://www.gerrellandhard.co.uk/insights/reframing-redundancy/">one of our candidates</a> whose volunteer work helped him reframe his experience of redundancy.</p>
<p>After repeated blows to his confidence, he spent time volunteering for the RNLI, where the value of his work was energising and confidence-boosting. &ldquo;I had a notable shift in mentality that came from doing things for other people,&rdquo; he said when we interviewed him in 2020, drawing attention to the critically-important power of volunteering to pull you out of a negative headspace.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When you don&rsquo;t have a job,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you can con yourself into thinking that unless you dedicate every minute of every day to finding one, you have no chance of succeeding. But that&rsquo;s just a trick your stressed mind plays on you that doesn&rsquo;t help at all. You can&rsquo;t productively job hunt all day every day &ndash; there&rsquo;s only so much you can do. Volunteering took me out of my own head and stopped me feeling guilty because I wasn&rsquo;t on my laptop 24/7.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p>It seems volunteering is a win-win, and there are precious few of those.&nbsp;</p>
<h3>How to find volunteering opportunities</h3>
<p>There are several organisations that can help you to find volunteering opportunities that are right for you. Here are some:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.doit.life/volunteer" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Do-It</strong></a>: A database of UK volunteering opportunities that allows you to find local opportunities.</li>
<li><a href="https://reachvolunteering.org.uk/i-want-volunteer" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Reach Volunteering</strong></a>: A site that connects professionals and charities through skill-based volunteer and trustee opportunities.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.ncvo.org.uk/get-involved/volunteering/volunteering-opportunities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>NCVO</strong></a>: A gateway for people interested in volunteering, which includes further resources and links to opportunities via third party websites.</li>
<li><a href="https://volunteeringmatters.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Volunteering Matters</strong></a>: Brings people together to overcome adversity, tackle isolation, improve physical and mental health, develop skills and ensure young people can lead change.</li>
</ul>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>A &ldquo;landmark&rdquo; autonomous vehicle legislation - <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/20/uks-autonomous-vehicle-legislation-becomes-law-paving-the-way-for-first-driverless-cars-by-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Automated Vehicles Act</a> - means self-driving vehicles can be rolled out on British roads as soon as 2026.</p>
<p>M&amp;S has become a founding member of <a href="https://www.edie.net/ms-to-track-whether-its-plastic-packaging-is-recycled/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Polytag's Ecotrace Programme</a>, which means it will be able to track the recycling of its plastic packaging using UV tags. The technology will provide data on the journey of single-use plastics from bin to recycling centre.&nbsp;</p>

The Power of Volunteering ⚡

<p id="ember1208" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">You don&rsquo;t have to be a big brand to get involved: employers of any size can help students to discover that there are more careers available to them than they may have imagined. Some of those careers are (reasonably) future-proof and potentially lucrative.</p>
<p id="ember1209" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Admittedly, the bigger brands have more wow factor. Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/mclaren-automotive-ltd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">McLaren Automotive Ltd</a> took its spectacular hybrid Artura car to Newminster Middle School and spoke to 9-10 year olds about engineering and McLaren careers. As outreach activity goes, it&rsquo;s pretty glamorous to be able to take a supercar on the road,&nbsp;but what&rsquo;s powerful about this is that McLaren is speaking to children, going to schools as well as colleges and universities to show where STEM careers can take you.</p>
<blockquote id="ember1210" class="ember-view">STEM employers need to talk to children at a point in their lives where they can make the biggest impact; ideally way before they are thinking about GCSEs.</blockquote>
<p id="ember1211" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Recently, the daughter of one of our team came home from school excited and full of questions about engineering after an automotive composites firm came to speak to her year group. Prior to this, she had assumed that engineering was boring. It&rsquo;s a familiar story.</p>
<h3 id="ember1212" class="ember-view">Leading the charge</h3>
<p id="ember1213" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Some brands have nailed outreach. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/jaguar-land-rover_1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">JLR</a> has a multi-layered schools partnership programme comprising employee encounters, work experience and more, supporting over 40,000 students annually. It also has a virtual work experience programme that provides a deep insight into the brand&rsquo;s &ldquo;ecosystem,&rdquo; delivered across a number of different modules, and a team of STEM ambassadors amongst its employees.</p>
<p id="ember1214" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">The <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/jcb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">JCB</a> Academy is another great scheme; a facility dedicated to developing the engineers and business leaders of the future among year 9, 10 and 12 students and a learning ethos that combines theory with practice.</p>
<h3 id="ember1216" class="ember-view">Social mobility: outreach and the opportunity gap</h3>
<p id="ember1217" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">By engaging with a more diverse network of young people, can employers in the STEM sector expand their potential talent pool, strike a blow against essential skills shortages and champion social mobility?</p>
<p id="ember1218" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">I&rsquo;m not suggesting that everybody can get into what are, after all, some very challenging careers. But the fact is, elite, competitive industries are often reserved for graduates from a limited pool of universities and social backgrounds, and if it&rsquo;s done right, employer outreach can play a part in levelling the playing field.</p>
<p id="ember1219" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">One organisation taking this idea to a new level is <em>Speakers For Schools</em>, the charity whose stated mission is to &ldquo;close the opportunity gap and level the playing field for all 11-19-year-olds from state schools and colleges by providing fair access to fully funded work experience and inspirational talks that will help them to reach their full career potential&rdquo;. It empowers state school students to engage with over 1,300 UK employers, with funded work experience programmes, talk and broadcasts from professionals from a wide variety of careers.</p>
<p id="ember1220" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">On a similar theme is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/volvo-group/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Volvo Group</a>&rsquo;s work with Daventry Hill School: an all-age special free school for children and young people with cognition and learning needs, where Volvo provides opportunities for mentoring, interview experience, &nbsp;workshops and special projects.</p>
<p id="ember1221" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Volvo&rsquo;s website raises something critically important point about this: &ldquo;Currently only 5% of students with Special Educational needs...enter full time paid employment, but many more have huge enthusiasm and skills that we would all benefit from.&rdquo;</p>
<h3 id="ember1222" class="ember-view">What any employer can do...</h3>
<p id="ember1223" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Engineering and technology employers face familiar challenges: unhelpful assumptions about technical careers, lack of diversity and lack of accessibility. But one of the most powerful things any employer can do is to help correct students&rsquo; own limiting beliefs about the reality of careers. Young people can assume they&rsquo;re underqualified or have no aptitude for a job that contains just a small element of areas in which they are weak. I wonder how many are frightened away from STEM careers before they&rsquo;ve been given a chance to have a go. You don&rsquo;t have to be McLaren to help correct these assumptions.</p>
<p id="ember1224" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">At a local level, lots of employers collaborate with schools and colleges in inspiring and pioneering ways. But this activity still feels siloed and fragmented. We must keep recognising outreach as a crucial tool in engaging the workforce of the future, and encourage employers to share resources and opportunities to do so.</p>
<h2 id="ember1225" class="ember-view">What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p id="ember1226" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">CorPower Ocean has achieved a breakthrough in <a href="https://www.environmentenergyleader.com/2024/04/ocean-wave-energy-breakthrough/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Wave Energy Conversion</a> with its C4 Wave Converter &ndash; a device that can successfully withstand storms and generate power efficiently.</p>
<p id="ember1227" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">The former Britishvolt battery gigafactory site in northern England could become one of <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/04/16/one-europes-largest-data-centres-could-be-built-britishvolts-former-gigafactory-site" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Europe's largest data centres</a>, creating thousands of jobs locally.</p>
<p id="ember1228" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">The UK Infrastructure Bank and investors have formed a &pound;100m fund to electrify hundreds of <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/04/09/ps100m-plan-electrify-londons-buses-announced" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">London&rsquo;s buses</a>.</p>

Sharing the wealth: the value of employer outreach - TechTalent April 24

<p id="ember956" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Even if these all of these brands are new to you, you might have heard of <em>BYD</em>, the battery-maker founded in 2003. It has since diversified into car-making and, last year, eclipsed Tesla to become the world&rsquo;s largest manufacturer of electric cars.</p>
<p id="ember957" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">All of these brands are Chinese, and a lot of them are cheap&mdash;<em>really</em> cheap: some are around half the price of equivalent European or US EV brands, and many of them will be on our roads by 2025. The BYD Seagull Honor Edition, a little city runaround, costs around &pound;7,600 in its home market, prompting the headline &ldquo;BYD&rsquo;s astoundingly cheap electric car sets a record that could spark a new price war&rdquo; from <a href="https://www.techradar.com/vehicle-tech/hybrid-electric-vehicles/byds-astoundingly-cheap-electric-car-sets-a-record-that-could-spark-a-new-price-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Tech Radar</a>.</p>
<h3 id="ember958" class="ember-view">What price EVs?</h3>
<p id="ember959" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Tech Radar&rsquo;s headline may be dramatic, but it&rsquo;s not alarmist.</p>
<p id="ember960" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Why shouldn&rsquo;t Chinese EVs sell like hot cakes, when price is the biggest barrier to widespread adoption of EVs in the UK? Soon, consumers will have no choice but to buy EVs or HEVs if they want a brand new car, and the tech billionaires and captains of industry responsible for some of them cannot relate to the average, financially-squeezed consumer when it comes to deciding what &ldquo;affordable&rdquo; really means.</p>
<blockquote id="ember961" class="ember-view">As a super-economy, China is well-placed to become a global superpower for EV exports. It has a massive, highly-skilled workforce, strong manufacturing infrastructure and committed government support.</blockquote>
<p id="ember962" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Just how committed that support is has become a contentious issue in Europe: government subsidies have allowed Chinese manufacturers to sell EVs so cheaply that foreign markets effectively become loss-leaders. As <a href="https://www.driving.co.uk/news/business/chinese-electric-cars-may-come-under-post-brexit-scrutiny-in-the-uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">The Sunday Times</a> puts it, &ldquo;concerns have been raised, especially at the European level, of Chinese companies leveraging their government-backed financial muscle to effectively sell their cars at a loss, or at least at a minimal profit, to drive European and British car makers (not to mention American, Japanese and Korean firms) to the wall.&rdquo;</p>
<h3 id="ember964" class="ember-view">Adapt or perish</h3>
<p id="ember965" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">That creates a thorny problem for the UK government: EVs are a societal and humanitarian essential and the (revised) deadline on EV/HEV-only production is 2035. It&rsquo;s important for our economy that the UK remains a powerhouse of automotive engineering and manufacture. But EVs are still too expensive for a majority of consumers. How does the UK simultaneously help consumers and remain a competitive market?</p>
<p id="ember966" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">As the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66820791" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">BBC wrote</a> last year, &ldquo;...should (the UK) fight the rising imports of Chinese electric cars with big new tariffs, in the same way the EU has threatened to do...or should it allow them to continue? Keeping open to the imports in would make it easier for the UK to hit its goal of no new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 (sic) and it would make electric cars cheaper. But the UK car industry could be damaged.&rdquo;<strong> </strong></p>
<h3 id="ember967" class="ember-view">The government&rsquo;s role</h3>
<p id="ember968" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Although the UK government has a keen eye on the situation through the Trade Remedies Authority, which stands &ldquo;ready to investigate the business practices of Chinese car makers,&rdquo; Chinese companies are already embedded domestically; Chinese firms now own Lotus, MG and Volvo. BYD will attempt to avoid European trade restrictions by building a factory in Hungary. Chinese money is accelerating our own product development. We need to compete on even terms, but can we?</p>
<p id="ember969" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">The next twelve months will likely see a lot of Chinese entrants to the domestic car market; we don&rsquo;t know how this situation will play out yet, but China&rsquo;s EV production will impact the government&rsquo;s appetite to accelerate UK-based R&amp;D for EV and battery technology.</p>
<p id="ember970" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">The way forward will almost certainly mean the UK collaborating more closely with the competition. The narrative isn&rsquo;t just about technology and affordability; it&rsquo;s also about the UK&rsquo;s ability to go toe-to-toe with bigger economies in the long term, and compete with them on a global scale.</p>
<h2 id="ember971" class="ember-view">What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p id="ember972" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">In response to the rise of Chinese manufacturers, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/15/honda-and-nissan-join-forces-on-electric-car-technology-to-chase-chinese-rivals" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">Honda and Nissan</a> are to join forces to develop EV technology.</p>
<p id="ember973" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">Mercedes is exploring the use of <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/15/mercedes-begins-piloting-apptronik-humanoid-robots/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">humanoid robots</a>, collaborating with Apptronik to trial robots for routine tasks in the manufacturing arena.</p>
<p id="ember974" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">In a significant boost to the UK's battery capacity, <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/03/07/natpower-allocates-ps10bn-massively-expand-uks-grid-scale-battery-storage" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-test-app-aware-link="">NatPower</a> is set to channel &pound;10bn into large-scale storage solutions, targeting to meet 15-20% of the nation's demand by 2040.</p>
<h2 id="ember975" class="ember-view">Search our vacancies</h2>
<p id="ember976" class="ember-view reader-content-blocks__paragraph">From procurement to software development, systems integration to charging, it&rsquo;s all on our website. Search our <a href="/jobs" data-test-app-aware-link="">vacancies</a> here.</p>

Electric Vehicles: the cost of the China conundrum 🔌 - TechTalent March 24

<p>Startups provide outstanding opportunities for personal and professional growth, but they come with a degree of risk and aren&rsquo;t for everyone. This is especially true today with our economy so volatile and global supply chains so delicately-balanced that promising startups can grind to a halt almost overnight. Tech innovation is rife with examples of stop-and-go, boom-and-bust; it is defined by opportunity and uncertainty, risk and reward.</p>
<p>Job-seekers considering whether to apply for roles with startups must be clear-headed about the opportunities and challenges they present. It&rsquo;s something we take very seriously when we speak to candidates.</p>
<h3>A mission, not a job</h3>
<p>There is fabulous opportunity within startups. It&rsquo;s been widely documented that younger generations of job-seekers are highly motivated by organisations with a mission and purpose that resonates with them (although this can be equally true for career-changers far deeper into their working life). Tech startups increasingly seek to address societal problems, so they appeal to people who want to work for an organisation aligned to their own values: those who want work to provide them with a purpose as much as a job.</p>
<p>For the right candidate the opportunities here will outweigh the risks of working in an organisation whose future is unclear. When we hire for startup clients, our job as recruiters is to be clear about the fundamental &ldquo;why?&rdquo; of a business, its potential to scale up, the culture and ethos candidates will be walking into, and what will be expected of them that might differ from a more established employer. Because this is where the culture of startups can feel very different.</p>
<h3>A culture of risk...</h3>
<p>Startups normally begin with a small team, no structure, no HR, fluid job descriptions (or none at all), a deep focus on customer needs or product purpose and a lot of tinkering and finessing. After what can be years at this stage, they may secure Series A funding, and it&rsquo;s now that recruitment starts as the founders begin building a team. In this environment, new hires can progress rapidly.</p>
<p>Throughout these years, startups are volatile and vulnerable. Around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ukbusinessmentoring.co.uk/news/why-do-businesses-fail" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20% will fail in their first year</a>, and 60% within their first three. About a third won&rsquo;t make it from series A to series B funding rounds, but once there, they become much more secure; the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.maddyness.com/uk/2023/04/26/a-third-of-startups-fail-after-raising-a-series-a-how-to-prevent-your-company-becoming-just-another-statistic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">failure rate falls to just over 1%</a>. The most celebrated startups can be pushed to the brink by the vagaries of the supply chain&mdash;consider how Volta Trucks stalled due entirely to issues with its battery supplier&mdash;and then given new life by investors, as Volta, happily, has been by Luxor Capital Group.</p>
<p>Change is guaranteed in startups, and not always the welcome kind. Even those whose journey is relatively seamless have to make workforce adjustments repeatedly as they grow, their progress marked by periods of shedding and then hiring (or re-hiring) staff, continually readjusting and flexing. It can take a decade for a business to level out into something approaching the stability of an established business.</p>
<h3>...and reward</h3>
<p>A new employee in a startup can expect direct access to the founders, who are pretty likely to be either industry leaders or disruptors and possibly both. They are very likely to be energetic, inspired and inspiring. The organisational structure could be very flat, with a lot of autonomy. As a learning environment, startups are often intense and allow you to grow rapidly. Things are done quickly, problems and learnings widely-shared. There is often little or no micromanagement and you could well work outside of your job description...if you have one at all.</p>
<p>The accelerated learning curve within startup culture can be rewarded with accelerated career opportunities. I&rsquo;ve seen a great startup employee achieve in five years what might have taken twenty to achieve in more established organisations. Good employees regularly achieve two promotions within three or four years in startups. And if they lose their jobs, they&rsquo;re usually in demand. They&rsquo;ve gained exposure and experience disproportionate to their tenure, whilst demonstrating qualities and a willingness to do it all, that any employer would want.</p>
<h3>What does it take to thrive in a startup?</h3>
<p>Great startup candidates are people with a passion for a mission that speaks to their own values, an opportunity to reap the rewards of hard work, and a desire for personal and professional growth. They must be comfortable with risk, very hard work and lack of demarcation: all things that are anathema to some. They must be believers. If you&rsquo;re seeking a cosy 9-5, look elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Remember: it&rsquo;s challenging everywhere</h3>
<p>Markets today are volatile and it&rsquo;s not as if the alternative to startup culture is a guaranteed job for life. In recent years, even the most established manufacturers&mdash;we could name almost any&mdash;conspicuously open and close sites, resource and then cancel huge new programmes, make sizable layoffs, secure funding from new sources and re-hire.</p>
<p>The urgency and demand for continuous improvement and change in technology is far greater than it was twenty years ago. Engineering is now addressing some of the most important humanitarian, social and environmental issues that we face as a species. With their ambition, commitment and willingness to take risks in order to drive change, startups are thrilling. More than that: they are essential.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Two innovative technologies are going head-to-head in the race to power zero-emission vehicles. But&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/will-hydrogen-overtake-batteries-in-the-race-for-zero-emission-cars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">will hydrogen fuel cells surpass batteries</a>?</p>
<p>Could&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68165762" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conversational AI</a> be a solution to loneliness?</p>

Would you thrive in a startup? TechTalent February 24

<p>How urgent is the need? The IET estimates that the shortage of STEM skills in the UK&mdash;which equates to over 173,000 workers&mdash;may&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/factfiles/innovation-and-skills-factfiles/addressing-the-stem-skills-shortage-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cost the UK economy &pound;1.5bn per year</a>. Its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/factfiles/innovation-and-skills-factfiles/uk-skills-surveys/skills-survey-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 Skills Survey</a>&nbsp;identified that 49% of engineering businesses are experiencing difficulties hiring, while the government has stated that it needs to find an additional 150,000 researchers and technicians by 2030 to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-and-development-rd-people-and-culture-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sustain its R&amp;D ambitions</a>. On a related note,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/factfiles/innovation-and-skills-factfiles/uk-skills-surveys/sustainability-skills-survey-2023-summary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The IET&rsquo;s 2023 Sustainability Skills Survey</a>&nbsp;also reveals that the UK is the only country in which most employers&mdash;63 percent&mdash;think the education system does not prepare graduates well for industry.</p>
<p>According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics, only&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/22927/share-and-total-number-of-stem-graduates-by-country/#:~:text=https://www.statista.com/chart/22927/share-and-total-number-of-stem-graduates-by-country/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26 percent of UK graduates</a>&nbsp;come from STEM courses, though other Western European countries have a similar problem; only Germany produces more than 30 percent of graduates in STEM fields.&nbsp;<a href="https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/the-global-distribution-of-stem-graduates-which-countries-lead-the-way/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CSET&rsquo;s most recent research</a>&nbsp;suggests that over 40% of graduates in China study STEM subjects, with China and India producing 3.57 million and 2.55 million STEM graduates respectively in 2020. The emerging super-economies are putting a lot into STEM and their success is largely due to their ability to build products and technologies.</p>
<h3>STEM needs more women</h3>
<p>Now that STEM skills are a numbers game, diversity in the associated sectors has become an issue: the relevant careers overwhelmingly attract men, but there simply aren&rsquo;t enough of them to make up the skills deficit. At school, college and university, STEM subjects really need female students.</p>
<p>Women constitute 47% of the UK workforce, but,&nbsp;<a href="https://theboar.org/2023/10/women-are-far-less-likely-to-get-a-first-class-degree-than-their-male-peers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to one report</a>, less than a fifth of students in engineering, technology and computing degrees are women. Role models and mentors play a huge part in inspiring young people to pursue their career choices, but women make up only 14% of professors in Physics, Maths and Chemistry nationwide. This lowers to 9% in Electrical and Computer Engineering subjects. And if you&rsquo;re one of only two or three young women in a group of thirty engineering students at college, and the people who come in to talk to you about their careers are all men, and all their colleagues are men, how are you supposed to conclude that this is a career for you?</p>
<h3>STEM&rsquo;s Catch-22</h3>
<p>We&rsquo;re trapped: we lack students and the teachers to inspire and teach them. We&rsquo;re not only short on female STEM professors&mdash;we&rsquo;ve a shortage STEM educators generally. The National Foundation for Educational Research found that teacher training recruitment was well below government targets in 2022/23,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/teacher-labour-market-in-england-annual-report-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">with the deficit most pronounced in physics, design and technology and computing</a>. The picture was also bleak in Further Education; in 2022 a report by The Financial Times found that three-quarters of domestic colleges were unable to recruit the staff they needed to teach technical and digital subjects.</p>
<p>So industry and education needs to work together to attract teachers as well as students. The DfE&rsquo;s &ldquo;<a href="https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/subjects/engineers-teach-physics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Engineers teach physics</a>&rdquo; programme is a good start, with scholarships and bursaries available for trainee physics teachers starting their teacher training course between September 2024 and July 2025.</p>
<h3>Students think creativity is missing from STEM subjects</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/news/future-forum-report-2022-published" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A 2022 report by the British Science Association</a>&nbsp;revealed that young people perceive very little overlap in the teaching of STEM and creative subjects, and &ldquo;believe this is a problem because it stifles creative thinking in STEM subjects...and sets students on a path of being either a &lsquo;creative&rsquo; person or a &lsquo;STEM&rsquo; person.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In other words, students don&rsquo;t necessarily think STEM careers can&rsquo;t be creative; they just think that the way STEM subjects are taught creates an unrealistic dichotomy between creative and STEM subjects. They also don&rsquo;t see enough creativity being applied to societal problems of the future.</p>
<p>But engineering is about solving problems, and we need make it feel as creative as it is. Rolls-Royce has set itself a target to inspire the next generation of engineers, with a STEM Outreach programme that aims to reach 25 million people by 2030 through an army of ambassadors. There are plenty of employers with the capacity to engage students and open their eyes to the creativity and excitement of design, engineering and manufacturing. To be effective, they don&rsquo;t need the resources that Rolls-Royce has at its disposal; building meaningful relationships with local schools would be a good start.</p>
<h3>The STEM conundrum</h3>
<p>If there&rsquo;s such a lack of STEM students, why do so many relevant graduates either struggle to find work, or quickly drop out of STEM careers when you&rsquo;d expect them to be courted and nurtured by employers? Clearly, more needs to be done to align STEM employers and educators, and to provide better onboarding and development programmes for graduate-level hires. Both employers and educators have a role here, with some already leading the way&mdash;Polestar and JLR are just two of many brands that have outstanding intake programmes.</p>
<h3>So where are we, really?</h3>
<p>There&rsquo;s a complicated set of issues hobbling the development of STEM skills and careers in the UK. We have the will, lots of talent and lots of smarts. We just don&rsquo;t have enough hands on deck, and STEM education feels gridlocked. If the UK is to remain a leader in manufacturing, engineering and R&amp;D, we need to resolve these issues, and quickly.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>We all know that our cars don&rsquo;t like the cold, but an&nbsp;<a href="https://insideevs.com/news/704318/ev-winter-range-loss-vs-ideal-conditions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis of 10,000 EVs</a>&nbsp;in the US has revealed they lose, on average, about 30% of their range when driving at 32 degrees Fahrenheit compared to ideal conditions.</p>
<p>Could Hyundai&rsquo;s Mobi e-Corner system be the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/24035050/hyundai-mobis-e-corner-system-ioniq-5-crab-drive-360" target="_blank" rel="noopener">next stage in manoeuvrability</a>?</p>
<p>From Digital Twins to scheduling software, here are some of the&nbsp;<a href="https://peopledevelopmentmagazine.com/2024/01/27/tech-trends/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">technologies the construction industry needs</a> this year, according to People Development Magazine.</p>

STEM in Education: Where are we, really? TechTalent January 24

<p>Here are the technologies that we&rsquo;ll be watching especially closely, as they continue to redefine how we live, work and connect with the world around us.</p>
<h3>Batteries</h3>
<p>For a long time, batteries were a bit of an impasse to the widespread adoption of next gen vehicles. But globally, governments and manufacturers recognise the need to enhance battery performance while lowering costs, and sustainable propulsion is critical for economies and the environment.</p>
<p>So it seemed inevitable that breakthroughs would occur soon enough, and as LFP (lithium ferro-phosphate) and NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) batteries become standard in electric vehicles, new technologies like cobalt-free (sodium-ion) and solid-state batteries are being researched. These innovations are likely to advance in 2024, offering higher energy densities at potentially lower costs, reducing reliance on legacy materials while promising increased lifespan and safety. Despite some negative noise about EVs in 2023, they&rsquo;re not going away. Speaking of which...</p>
<h3>Bidirectional charging</h3>
<p>Vehicles are increasingly seen as versatile energy storage devices, and bidirectional charging allows car owners to transfer energy from a vehicle to a range of other destinations as required. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology could transform power grid operations, while vehicle-to-home (V2H) charging will allow EVs to power homes or businesses. Vehicle-to-load (V2L) technology allows EVs to power appliances or other EVs. We expect electric vehicles to significantly impact how power is stored and distributed on a large scale, and for this to be front of mind for many manufacturers in the foreseeable future.</p>
<h3>Quantum Computing</h3>
<p>Quantum computers use the laws of quantum physics to perform vastly complex computations very quickly, enabling them to solve problems that traditional computers can&rsquo;t. Quantum computing will have increasingly widespread real-world impact in 2024: it&rsquo;s already been used in various fields, with MIT researchers using it to solve an airline routing problem in 2022. Its application in areas like battery design, supply chain optimisation and drug development place quantum computing at the forefront of globally-significant technologies; McKinsey anticipates that the sector will be worth almost $1.3 trillion by 2035.</p>
<h3>AI</h3>
<p>Surely the biggest tech story of 2023, AI will continue to generate headlines (in both senses!) in 2024. According to McKinsey, generative AI will mostly be used by businesses for customer operations, marketing, software engineering and R&amp;D.</p>
<p>The technology can already simplify complex tasks like navigating tax codes, summarising legal documents and developing software, with many professional coders already relying on Microsoft Copilot. Generative AI will bring significant productivity gains for employers, helping to enhance the performance and productivity of professionals in many fields.</p>
<h3>Carbon Capture</h3>
<p>It&rsquo;s not often that predictions for the success of &ldquo;green&rdquo; initiatives get revised upwards. Nonetheless, CO2 capture&mdash;the science of trapping emissions from power plants and heavy industry and storing it underground&mdash;is arguably going better than expected (though still beset by challenges, it must be said). The International Energy Agency, at least, has revised upwards its forecast for the amount of CO2 that will be captured by 2030, and the process has attracted significant investment from the US and EU.</p>
<p>Emerging solvent technologies are now more energy-efficient for CO2 capture and storage, and solid sorbents are being developed for their cost-effectiveness and enhanced CO2 selectivity. Improvements in membrane technology will allow us to more effectively filter CO2 from gases, enhancing efficiency and scalability.</p>
<p>We expect the pace of change to increase in these (and other) sectors next year, and we&rsquo;ll see the impact of many of these technologies interacting, requiring an influx of engineers who are tech-savvy in a new way.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Something else we&rsquo;ll be watching closely in the future is the metaverse: a &ldquo;synthetic virtual environment that&rsquo;s still grounded or parallel to the real world,&rdquo; while 5G will have massive implications for individuals and businesses.</p>
<p>In slightly more prosaic news, the city of Paris aims to drive large SUVs out of its centre by increasing parking fees for heavy cars; the city has plans for a local referendum on the place of SUVs in the capital early next year.</p>
<h2>From us to you...</h2>
<p><em><strong>Thanks to all our readers for being a friend to Gerrell &amp; Hard this year. As ever it&rsquo;s been a privilege to do what we do, and we wish you all the best for a peaceful and prosperous 2024.</strong></em></p>

Five Tech trends to watch for 2024 - TechTalent December 23

<p>Although this article is anecdotal rather than scientific, I wouldn&rsquo;t be writing it if I didn&rsquo;t think there are some qualities, behaviours and traits that many successful people share. I&rsquo;m fascinated by what it is that unites great professionals. What makes them stand out?</p>
<p>If it&rsquo;s at least a little subjective, why is it so important to talk about this? Firstly, because candidates can learn to develop some of these behaviours and evidence them in CVs and interviews to gain competitive advantage. Secondly, although some employers hire with these exceptional behaviours in mind and are careful to assess potential where they can, I wonder whether assessment criteria and methods focus enough on predictors of high performance. The notable exception is assessment centres, which can be excellent if done right. Nonetheless, hiring managers are often pressured into matching candidates to job specs first and foremost.</p>
<h3>Hard to assess, but priceless?</h3>
<p>Here are the qualities I&rsquo;ve noticed, which most often stand out in great professionals.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>They have a habit of making problems go away</strong>. This is not just about being tenacious when it comes to solving problems, it&rsquo;s about simply being unable to turn a blind eye to anything that&rsquo;s not great. An imperfect process or frequently-raised customer issue is an itch they have to scratch, and in the project economy, employers are looking for people who will grab hold of things.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>They are a proactive member of a team</strong>. I know of one hiring manager, renowned for building great teams, who likes candidates to have a good (but not necessarily exceptional) degree gained while they also threw themselves into a productive team activity. They may have joined a sports team or worked with others to support a cause; regardless, they had the energy and passion to sustain the activity throughout university, the logical pragmatism to balance their life to accommodate things they enjoy, and the ability to work with a diverse set of strangers to solve problems. They also recognise that the team&rsquo;s success is their success; something that augurs well for future leaders, when they make the challenging shift from doer to enabler.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>They are driven to develop themselves</strong>. A great manager we interviewed for a blog once said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy for employers to say they bring people in and develop them, but most actually don&rsquo;t. They haven&rsquo;t the money or the time. What you really need is for candidates to possess a drive and passion to develop themselves, and the opportunity and environment that enables them to do it. The will to learn, grow and succeed comes from people; the tools and framework comes from the employer.&rdquo;</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>They&rsquo;re highly organised</strong>. It&rsquo;s simply essential to be organised in a world where a volatile economy and rapid technological innovation means you never know what might come at you next.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>They&rsquo;re emotionally intelligent and self-aware</strong>. This is a huge subject that we may deal with in future newsletters or blogs, but suffice to say, self-awareness is the foundation for so many other skills and good behaviours, especially in leaders.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>There&rsquo;s a time and place for all skillsets, levels of ambition and definitions of success. Possessing these qualities in spades is no guarantee of success, just as evidencing qualities different from these won&rsquo;t prevent you from progressing. This is a subjective list and I&rsquo;m sure you have others, in which case please share them in comments under the newsletter.</p>
<h3>Are we asking the right questions...and are questions the most useful tool?</h3>
<p>In the hiring process, some forms of assessment are especially focused on identifying and measuring behaviours and traits. Assessment centres are a great way to foreground candidate behaviours in contrast to learned subject matter expertise. For some hirers there&rsquo;s a trade-off, with a minimum level of technical knowledge required, but potential carrying more weight. This depends on the organisation, its ability to discern such things at all, and the purpose of the hire. Do you need specific skills right now, or are you hiring for the future?</p>
<p>Many employers concentrate on assessing education, technical skills and knowledge when the reality of culture within their company may require something more ineffable&mdash;like, say, creativity&mdash;which could have more bearing on success than any of the above. When facing the demands of sizeable graduate intakes, it&rsquo;s not easy to find ways of identifying those rare skills and behaviours that often make for a successful career.</p>
<p>When you hire, are you hiring a person or a job? Because if you&rsquo;re hiring a job, you&rsquo;re hiring something that is finite. If you hire a person, you&rsquo;re investing into a project that could change the business.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>The UK automotive sector has received a boost from Nissan, as the carmaker confirms three electric models for its plant in Sunderland, discusses plans for another battery cell factory in North East England and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.electrive.com/2023/11/24/nissan-fully-commits-to-the-uk-as-it-plans-3-evs-and-3-battery-factories/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pledges &pound;billions in investment</a>.</p>
<p>In an attempt to ensure safe deployment of autonomous vehicles on British roads, the&nbsp;<a href="https://t.co/DaXSn31cC1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UK's new Automated Vehicles Bill</a> shifts responsibility for self-driving car incidents from users to manufacturers.</p>

Do the most successful employees share special qualities? TechTalent November 23

<p>The report, &ldquo;Taking Responsibility &ndash; why UK PLC needs better managers,&rdquo; is the result of a nationwide study into the state of UK management and leadership that polled over 4,500 people. It highlights the stark impact of ineffective management on employees: half of workers who rate their manager as ineffective also plan to leave their organisation in the next 12 months.</p>
<p>Consider what it means to be a manager for a moment. The CMI has revealed that the overwhelming majority of new managers are conducting skilled, nuanced tasks&mdash;such as performance management, pastoral support, managing grievances and more&mdash;with not a single hour of formal training between them.</p>
<p>The connection between good management and high productivity is amply evidenced: previous CMI research shows that investment in management and leadership development programmes leads to an average of 23% increase in organisational performance and 32% increase in employee engagement and productivity. Its research also found that those with formal management training are significantly more likely to trust their team and feel comfortable leading change initiatives and calling out bad behaviour, compared to those without training.</p>
<p>This report is an explicit call to arms for better management and training. And it is needed. As CMI CEO Ann Francke, OBE, remarks in the report:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;High levels of workforce sickness, burnout and economic inactivity are all above pre-pandemic levels, and the UK is the only G7 country where GDP remains below where it stood before Covid-19.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It&rsquo;s clear that good management is critically important to the future of the UK.</p>
<h3>What causes accidental management?</h3>
<p>Accidental managers are often people who excel in their functional roles and whom, with nowhere else to go, are appointed to management positions. Their new role can be foisted upon them by restructures, downsizing, mergers, or because an organisational pivot means someone has to take on additional responsibilities that include management. As employers lean towards flatter structures, the traditional manager, whose specific skillset was about organising, overseeing, assessing, motivating, developing and deploying talent, seems to be disappearing. The pace of change in the economic landscape since 2008, and then again since the pandemic, has led to all of the above.</p>
<p>But the best performers are not always the best managers, and if an employer&rsquo;s only way to reward good performance is to push these individuals into management, they risk turning some of their strongest assets into some of their greatest liabilities.</p>
<h3>Startups and accidental managers</h3>
<p>The rise of startup culture has also contributed to the phenomenon of accidental managers. In high-growth industries like technology, the pace of scaling can be so rapid that people are promoted to fill urgent needs rather than through planned career development.</p>
<p>This is exacerbated by the fact that in highly technical environments, managers and leaders need a degree of technical expertise to be able to develop their teams, and people who excel in both technical and managerial skillsets are rare. Scaleups can force leaders to develop fast, and have accelerated opportunities for some: great for the people who want it, a huge risk for those who don&rsquo;t, and we&rsquo;d love to see more employers building L&amp;D structurally into their process.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We see the effect of this lack of training across the full lifecycle of recruitment and retention, from hiring through to ongoing staff development. Each requires a high level of skill that is not automatically developed on the route to management.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>The importance of selection and training</h3>
<p>None of this is very good for new managers, either, who can have a really hard time adjusting to additional responsibilities. Almost a fifth say they aren&rsquo;t confident in their own leadership abilities while 60% say they&rsquo;re confident but need further development. Many recognise that leadership simply isn&rsquo;t for them, and we&rsquo;ve helped many unhappy managers step back into a skilled specialist role.</p>
<p>Employers can better support new managers by offering formal training programs focused on essential management skills like conflict resolution, delegation, and performance appraisal. Another valuable training tool is mentoring: pairing new managers with more experienced leaders. I&rsquo;m sure it would also help if more employers could allow new managers to gradually transition from their previous roles, acquiring responsibilities and skills in parallel.</p>
<h3>A way forward?</h3>
<p>There is a massive opportunity here. Clearly it&rsquo;s not easy for employers to allocate adequate time and resources to identifying the right people for management roles and supporting them to develop effectively, otherwise they&rsquo;d do it more often. But the risk of carrying on regardless surely outweighs any short-term benefit of taking the path of least resistance. What if the CMI&rsquo;s call to action was fully embraced by employers and authorities? What if support for management training and expertise generated the momentum of, say, the STEM agenda?</p>
<p>The UK PLC clearly needs to foster better management skills. Perhaps if we reframed management as a technical competence&mdash;as essential for doing a job as technical expertise is for an engineer&mdash;we&rsquo;d recognise just how critically important it is.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month?</h2>
<p>The UK government has announced a &pound;70m investment in telecom technology and joined a coalition to be positioned as a&nbsp;<a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/10/government-pledges-70m-for-next-gen-telecommunications-technology/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">global leader in 6G tech</a>.</p>
<p>An off-road solar-powered car has created a 1,000km journey across Morocco and the Sahara&nbsp;<a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/10/off-road-solar-powered-car-completes-1000km-desert-trip/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">without recharging</a>.</p>

Accidental Managers: one of the UK’s greatest opportunities? TechTalent October 23

<h5>Last week he announced that domestic consumers would be able to buy new diesel and petrol vehicles until 2035, a delay of five years on the government&rsquo;s previous ban on new petrol and diesel car sales. In this newsletter we&rsquo;ll share a brief, politically-neutral assessment of the news based on our conversations with clients and candidates.</h5>
<blockquote>
<p>The response from the automotive industry ranges from relaxed to enraged, and may depend on how much skin in the game the various car manufacturers have: some are so far ahead of the curve that it won&rsquo;t make a difference to them, while others will appreciate the breathing space.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ford UK has already invested &pound;430m to upgrade its UK plants to produce electric cars, with UK chair Lisa Brankin describing the original 2030 target as &ldquo;a vital catalyst to accelerate Ford into a cleaner future". She believes the relaxation of the 2030 deadline undermines the &ldquo;ambition, commitment, and consistency&rdquo; the brand needs from the government.</p>
<p>The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said the news would send an "incredibly confusing" message to consumers who may now delay their purchase of an electric car, but the mood is mixed: Toyota welcomed the government's announcement, while JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) said the move was "pragmatic&rdquo;.</p>
<h3>Who does the delay protect, and for how long?</h3>
<p>The Prime Minister has suggested that the cost of EV adoption for consumers is a key driver for the delay, saying it is &ldquo;not right to impose more costs on working people.&rdquo; EVs are undeniably pricey. The average cost of a new petrol car is about &pound;39,000, rising to about &pound;50,000 for an electric one; not easy to swallow in a cost of living crisis.</p>
<p>And while the cost of electric vehicles has long been a barrier for consumers, so has a lack of infrastructure. A five-year delay could present an opportunity for mobility and charging projects to win more investment, with a bigger window to lay foundations that could facilitate widespread market adoption in slower time, which may yet be kinder to the consumer.</p>
<h3>A blow to investment?</h3>
<p>However, the biggest risk to the automotive industry is that the delay could damage investment into it. The reality of innovation markets is that the more investment they can attract, the greater their emphasis on technological research and development. This is how cost-reduction is accelerated for consumers in the long term, and the risk now is that investment will slow or stop in certain pockets of the market.</p>
<p>Many brands were years into R&amp;D, manufacture and strategising to meet the 2030 targets. Investors expect to see a return, and when one market stalls, other, more progressive ones will become a new target for investors. Funding may be redirected to other markets or other countries, and with that investment will go the forces that make technology more affordable. If the new 2035 deadline does indeed present a new window of opportunity to improve our infrastructure, then government and industry are going to have to work together to woo investors.</p>
<h3>A matter of perspective?</h3>
<p>Is Rishi Sunak kicking the can down the road, slowing the process of total market adoption? It&rsquo;s hard not to see this impacting consumer adoption in the short term, but the process is subtle. It&rsquo;s not just about mandates and deadlines, and buyer behaviour is not purely economically-driven. It is also social and cultural (which is probably why the SMMT fears consumer confusion).</p>
<p>Last month we talked about the volatility and uncertainty of markets, and the Prime Minister has inarguably forced a rapid adjustment onto manufacturers that had invested millions or billions to meet the 2030 targets. But despite this there is a core of manufacturers, consumers and lobbyists who will continue to drive change. The impact on manufacturers will likely depend on whether their EV strategies so far have been a matter of necessity or choice. Developments in mobility have been driven by people who want to be the change they want to see. Many of our clients will not swerve from their planned course.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Three-quarters of crops grown around the world to produce fruits or seeds for human consumption are reliant, in part, on pollinators. But mechanical pollination may be increasingly needed as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66807456?at_medium=RSS&amp;at_campaign=KARANGA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bee populations</a>&nbsp;struggle.</p>
<p>We can&rsquo;t help but be fascinated by the sheer madness of the Tesla Cybertruck, and drone footage may have captured images of &ldquo;Master Candidate&rdquo; vehicles outside the&nbsp;<a href="https://electrek.co/2023/09/26/production-tesla-cybertruck/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brand&rsquo;s Texas Gigafactory</a>.</p>
<p>We&rsquo;re all for anything that introduces more people into science and technology, so how about this range of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/business/learning/blog/code-challenges?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B7xpFpiDXSHqKyiEuJynUXw%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coding courses</a> from LinkedIn that are free until December 18th?</p>
<h2>What&rsquo;s next?</h2>
<p>If the government&rsquo;s announcement about 2030 has affected your hiring or job search plans in any way, feel free to get in touch with us to see if we can help.</p>

UK’s carbon neutrality: an assessment of the 2030 row back - TechTalent September 23

<p>There isn&rsquo;t a one-size-fits-all formula for successful business growth, but I want to share some of the patterns we&rsquo;ve seen when helping startups navigate hiring for growth in a competitive market.</p>
<h3>Key questions for success</h3>
<p>Startups that hit their stride tend to grapple with the big questions early on. Here are just some:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>What&rsquo;s our mission&mdash;what problem are we solving?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What is the draw for candidates?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How are candidates&rsquo; values changing?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How can we help employees to be successful?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What balance of new and established candidates do we need, and how do we appeal to all of them?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How are we perceived externally?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How do we upskill and retain staff once we&rsquo;ve got them?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Letting go: finding the next generation of leaders</h3>
<p>Typically, successful tech startups are run by a few influential, multiskilled people who can either do everything or simply have to because there&rsquo;s nobody else who will. When they find themselves ready to scale up, they can be drawn into thinking they need more people like them.</p>
<p>But for a founder it can be counterproductive to cling to the illusion that there are more out there like you. External hires can hardly be expected to match a founder&rsquo;s passion, or their ability to fulfil the work of three business functions and forego sleep. The search for this candidate is a blind alley. The key is to strike a balance, finding individuals with a robust skill set and a purpose that aligns with your own. It&rsquo;s more dangerous to stall in the search for a non-existent candidate than it is to have to spent a little time rounding out an already-competent person.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There&rsquo;s another danger for founders: not letting go. When it&rsquo;s your vision or your product, growth can be a period of great change, fraught with emotion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It&rsquo;s important not to ignore that. SWOT analyses aside, I&rsquo;ve had many conversations with leaders about the impact of growth, from discussing fears and doubts to sharing excitement about opportunities.</p>
<h3>Hiring people with appetite for growth</h3>
<p>So good startups get their leaders right first, and often, they need people who can drive a business, upskill and inspire those around them. But it&rsquo;s not easy to find people with both the appetite and the ability to do that. Okay, so you can design a product, but in 24 months&rsquo; time could you train three people to design it? If you&rsquo;re aiming for growth, are you hiring the right people for a growing business?</p>
<p>A startup team needs to anticipate what growth looks like: as the growth curve starts to steepen, they may need to make new hires at volume and get those hires up to speed, fast. That means fostering a great relationship between established employees and new hires.</p>
<h3>Embedding teams</h3>
<p>It also means having a defined intake strategy, such as embedding graduates in teams that can share the load and ensure each new hire is more than adequately coached and supported to develop key competencies. Do this well and you&rsquo;ve a great chance of producing well-rounded, highly skilled people. The effect is like a cyclist in a peloton: you accelerate someone&rsquo;s growth by putting them in with the pack.</p>
<h3>Accommodating new hires (literally)</h3>
<p>Candidates may want to have conversations about where they will work. Some want to work from home, others want to be surrounded by people. The homeworkers may be motivated by working from home but still want to feel part of a peer group. It&rsquo;s useful to be aware of the environmental factors that affect candidates&rsquo; decision-making, and to have a strategy for responding to them, from the outset. That goes for all cultural attraction factors.</p>
<h3>Meeting the challenge head on</h3>
<p>If you&rsquo;re growing a business in a VUCA environment, it makes sense that your activities should directly grapple with those challenges. What do any of us need in a competitive market and turbulent times? A driven, engaged team. Perhaps a simple business model and product strategy. (Simplicity is hard to achieve, and as I write this I&rsquo;m mindful of how well Volta launched with a single product and a laser focus). What else? A clear understanding of purpose is critical. So is the ability to pivot swiftly when you need to.</p>
<p>Few UK-based tech manufacturers have launched and flourished in recent years. I&rsquo;m proud to say that Gerrell &amp; Hard has been a part of the journey of some of the success stories. I hope we can share the lessons we have learned across many recruitment lifecycles and save more startups and scaleups from some of the big growing pains.</p>
<p>What&rsquo;s your professional experience of the &ldquo;VUCA&rdquo; environment? Feel free to share your thoughts with us on LinkedIn!</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Potentially a game-changer in plastic pollution? Researchers at UBC have found that adding natural plant compounds to a layer of wood dust creates a filter that traps virtually all&nbsp;<a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/08/wood-dust-found-to-absorb-microplastics-in-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">microplastic particles</a>&nbsp;present in water.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a pioneering wind-powered cargo ship embarked (set sail?) on its maiden voyage earlier this month - with giant sails designed by British company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66543643" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WindWings</a>.</p>
<h2>Read our blog</h2>
<p>On the subject of wind, our recent blog almost didn&rsquo;t happen thanks to a severe weather warning from the MET. But despite hair-raising conditions, Simon Davey did manage to get to this year&rsquo;s Festival Of Speed. It was blowy but showy, and he shares his highlights in&nbsp;<a href="/insights">our latest blog</a>.</p>

How do you solve a problem like growth? TechTalent August 23

<p>When new tech firms are born, the early focus is on developing the technology. After that, the growing pains for tech firms are often about securing investment and premises. Securing talent can be the last piece in the puzzle, despite being the basis for everything that comes next.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The result is that tech companies have to work fast and under pressure when putting resource behind new projects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Furthermore, as many tech employers today are breaking boundaries, there is no hard and fast rule, no established template for creating and deploying a strategy to identify, attract and onboard talented employees. It&rsquo;s not like they can fall back on the hard-worn playbook of legacy technologies to build a team. (Nor can most established OEMs today, incidentally, since they too are breaking new ground.)</p>
<p>What&rsquo;s really critical in a growth partner is that we have to be flexible and responsive, able to join a project at any stage in its lifecycle and either lead, or act as a supplement to, in-house teams.</p>
<p>Here&rsquo;s my take on where recruitment growth partnerships can extend beyond a pure hiring brief:</p>
<h3>Benchmarking</h3>
<p>Benchmarking can move beyond salary comparisons and trends into analyses of which locations will attract the highest numbers of appropriate candidates, how far candidates will commute, which backgrounds they could hail from, what type of packages have the greatest appeal, what kind of flexible working or hybrid models will prove most popular and where hiring projects most often falter.</p>
<h3>Employer branding</h3>
<p>Gerrell &amp; Hard has been lucky to be involved with several hiring projects for brands so new and potentially disruptive that they are shrouded in secrecy. When we undertake a project like this, we have to work with a client to understand what we can communicate to the world about them. If we can&rsquo;t say much, what can we say that will attract the right people?</p>
<h3>Structuring intake</h3>
<p>Workforce planning for a new project is a consultative, full-lifecycle process where growth partners work with clients to build a hiring strategy that can include understanding the benefits of permanent or contract staff and an understanding of what resource budgets are available for upscaling a team.</p>
<h3>Software and ATS solutions</h3>
<p>We&rsquo;ve found that a critical area for our clients is about what software and ICT to use, from Applicant Tracking Systems to advertising and branding - specifically how to position a brand to attract candidates. We can speak about what works and what does not, which can help accelerate growth.</p>
<h3>Some examples of our growth partnerships</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>At Volta Trucks we went on a journey with the hiring team which took the brand from startup to scaleup, with each stage requiring different services. Over three years we recruited a number of teams, acting as a scaling partner bolted on to Volta&rsquo;s talent team, with our mission varying from headhunting a director to hiring a very large number of people across a wide variety of skillsets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>At FORSEVEN we&rsquo;re working with an exciting EV startup that appears set to undergo dramatic expansion as it reimagines the ecosystem for electric vehicle production and ownership.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Low-volume, behaviour-focused global search work for the INFINITI Motor Company performance academy.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A planned assessment centre for a sizeable graduate intake for EV innovator Polestar, which we had to pivot rapidly to an online format due to the pandemic.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Nissan Sprint project: identifying future leaders from across the industry.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A sizeable project that powered Honda&rsquo;s return to F1, which helped the brand accelerate its return to Formula One in a short time frame.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>...and many more. Gerrell &amp; Hard&rsquo;s role as a growth partner is by no means the only way we work with our clients, but it&rsquo;s fantastic to be involved in the journey of a new company or project. We have an appetite for this work. For me, it boils down to solving problems for employers so they can do great things to solve problems for society.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>We all know about the space race playing out among the big technology billionaires, but tech development really looks set to become out of this world. You may have seen &ldquo;made in Japan&rdquo;, &ldquo;made in Britain&rdquo; or &ldquo;made in Mexico&rdquo; labels &ndash; but &ldquo;Made on the moon&rdquo; could one day be seen in certain circles. NASA research could lead to the development of new lost-cost solar cells designed for use in space, and using only materials harvested from the moon. NASA wants these to sport a "<a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/27/nasa-plans-to-manufacture-solar-cells-on-moon-from-scratch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Made on the Moon</a>&rdquo; label.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in a recent press release,&nbsp;<a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/27/why-are-7-automakers-building-a-new-charging-network/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven automakers announced that they&rsquo;re teaming up to build a new charging network</a>. BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis NV intend to build 30,000 charging stations across the US in the next few years.</p>
<h2>Meet our partners</h2>
<p>If you&rsquo;re intrigued by any of the examples of our growth partnerships in this month&rsquo;s main article,&nbsp;<a href="/partners">view our list of partners here</a>.</p>

What are “growth partnerships” in recruitment? - TechTalent July 23

<h5>But there&rsquo;s a more nuanced point about mass-scale adoption of EVs: they won&rsquo;t unduly change our behaviour as drivers. So while they may reduce emissions, they won&rsquo;t solve the problem of our clogged roads. They are not, therefore, the full-scale mobility solution for a visionary&rsquo;s city of the future.</h5>
<p><a href="https://www.drivetech.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Whitepaper-Micromobility.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25% of journeys</a>&nbsp;by motorised vehicles within the UK are under a mile. 68% are under five miles. And with 45% of journeys in the UK being made in privately-owned vehicles, it&rsquo;s clear that a lot of our traffic is drivers taking &ldquo;around the block&rdquo; journeys&mdash;doubtless while experiencing the joy of other drivers doing the same.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There&rsquo;s a big problem to be solved here, and it could have a very small solution.</p>
<p>With the rise of hybrid and home-working, we simply don&rsquo;t need cars as much as we used to, and the government is taking notice of how micromobility can help reduce both emissions and traffic congestion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;Micromobility&rdquo; refers to small, lightweight vehicles that are slower than conventional traffic and used over short distances, including electric bicycles, scooters and other open-air, single-person vehicles. According to McKinsey, the global micromobility market is worth about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/the-future-of-mobility-mobility-evolves" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$180 billion</a>&nbsp;and could increase to $440 billion by 2030. The tiny open vehicles you occasionally see today look set to become ubiquitous. In the UK alone there are already a number of micromobility projects underway that present huge opportunities for UK design and manufacture, and the transfer of skills from traditional automotive applications into this space is critical for the expansion of the market.</p>
<h3>A market set to explode</h3>
<p>The demand for short-range, low-emission transportation is clear and the next decade or two will see a transformation in mobility as the government puts legislation in place to limit congestion and incentivise and invest in the adoption of micro-vehicles. We&rsquo;re likely to see a decline in privately-owned passenger vehicles, while micromobility and eMobility infrastructure will be an industry in itself.</p>
<p>These markets are well-positioned to echo the innovations of disruptor brands such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gerrellandhard.co.uk/partner-clients/volta-trucks">Volta Trucks</a>, by challenging ideas about vehicle ownership through solutions such as mobility-as-a-service.</p>
<h3>Safety and legality</h3>
<p>The UK is a hotbed for innovation in this area and it seems likely we&rsquo;ll see last-mile fleet services embrace micromobility. But there are questions around legitimacy and safety: eScooters don't comply with road traffic laws (they don't have rear lights or registration plates for starters) so it is illegal to use privately-owned ones on public roads.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a different story with rental: approved rental scooter trials are ongoing in 31 regions in England including Bournemouth, Cambridge, Derby, Liverpool, parts of London and Portsmouth. In these regions, rental eScooters are legal on public roads as long as users have a driving licence, and it is&nbsp;<a href="https://electroheads.com/blogs/news/electric-scooters-legal-uk-law" target="_blank" rel="noopener">likely private models will be legalised</a>, though the weight of anecdotal evidence of them being misused means that rules around usage will require clarification and enforcement.</p>
<h3>Reimagining transport</h3>
<p>The world needs innovation in micromobility more than it needs another supercar, and as a younger generation of engineers and dreamers is drawn to employers who are trying to solve the world&rsquo;s problems, we see a renewed focus on finding a genuine alternative to traditional transport. The demand and technology is consistent with changes already experienced within the automotive industry but the application is smaller, more local and more environmentally sustainable.</p>
<p>Two notable companies in this space are iconic UK brand&nbsp;<a href="https://www.brompton.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brompton</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://eav.solutions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EAV</a>. The eCargo bikes of the latter are an urban delivery solution for a new world; an example of a business making the most of best-in-class UK engineering skills to develop transformative products quickly, and to a high standard.</p>
<p>Mobility solutions of the future could look very different. Of course cars and trucks will still be with us&mdash;twenty years is no time at all really&mdash;but micromobility solutions will increasingly be adopted to help people to move around more freely, reduce emissions and declutter our roads.</p>
<p>We expect to see more engineering consultancies moving into the micromobility space. A market to watch? Most definitely.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Continuing the theme of our main article, a partnership between Benzina Zero and Domino&rsquo;s is allowing for&nbsp;<a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/26/hot-fresh-pizza-delivered-with-no-petrol/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EV pizza delivery</a>&nbsp;in Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fia-now-interviewing-non-f1-personnel-to-ensure-cost-cap-compliance/10488184/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIA has closed a potential loophole</a> that some F1 teams may have exploited to allow personnel outside of their main team to help work on car design and development projects.</p>
<h2>Case studies</h2>
<p>From pandemic-era assessment centres to sourcing unique skillsets for innovative startups, the Gerrell &amp; Hard team is proud to deliver responsive hiring and workforce management solutions across our markets. Discover some of our&nbsp;<a href="/case-studies">growing roster of case studies</a>.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What do you think of micromobility solutions? And are eScooters a help or hazard? Let us know what you think by dropping a comment under the newsletter on LinkedIn! And <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sector-defined-solutions-verticals-gerrell-hard-ltd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">don't forget to subscribe</a> if you&rsquo;re not already!</strong></p>

Why micromobility is the new transport market to watch 🛴🛵 - TechTalent June 23

<p>In recent years the volume of engineering job postings has revealed a sharp increase in demand for talent. In 2021, nineteen per cent of all UK vacancies were engineering-related; <a href="#">this year the figure is above 25%</a>. The UK&rsquo;s need for more STEM-qualified candidates is well-documented: the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/school/iet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)</a> reports that we are <a href="https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/government-urged-to-tackle-shocking-skills-shortage-by-adding-engineering-to-curriculum" target="_blank" rel="noopener">short by 173,000 STEM workers</a>, with at least half of UK engineering businesses struggling to fill vacancies.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If HR and hiring managers are losing sleep over recruitment, you can bet they&rsquo;re losing it over retention too.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to research by Oxford Economics and Unum, the cost of churn (or turnover if you prefer) per employee (earning &pound;25,000 or more) in the UK is over &pound;30,000. And last year, a PwC survey of over 2,000 UK workers found that almost one in five were very likely or &ldquo;extremely likely&rdquo; to switch employers within 12 months. The same report found that around 60% would prefer to work fully or mostly from home.</p>
<h3>What caused the great resignation?</h3>
<p>In the post-pandemic landscape, decentralised working and health and wellbeing go hand in hand, and employers lucky or determined enough to offer true flexibility have a clear advantage. Last year, an alliance of organisations including the NFP-community 4 Day Week Global, thinktank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign and researchers at elite universities conducted a high-profile, six-month <a href="https://autonomy.work/portfolio/uk4dwpilotresults/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UK trial of the four-day week</a>. 61 companies participated in what was the largest trial of its kind in the world. The results were so impressive that 92% continued with the four-day week after the trial ended, while 18 adopted the new policy as a permanent change.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Before and after&rdquo; data revealed reductions in employee stress, anxiety and fatigue and improvements in their mental and physical health. The number of staff leaving participating companies decreased by 57% while 15% of employees polled said no amount of money would induce them to accept a 5-day week over a 4-day one. Once the threshold for minimum sustainable earnings has been reached, it&rsquo;s clear what employees really value.</p>
<p>Reduced hours and flexible working are big &ldquo;ticks&rdquo; for employees and jobseekers, but having adopted this culture during the pandemic, many employers are now reverting back to pre-pandemic models. And we are seeing them lose people, while businesses that have truly embraced this new flexibility (or those new enough to have been born in &ldquo;the new normal&rdquo; and set their stall out accordingly) are thriving.</p>
<h3>Other popular benefits</h3>
<p>Jobseekers also want equity: not necessarily in the form of share options (though that is a popular benefit) but in some form of ownership, literal or metaphorical, of a business. This could be simply a feeling that they really do have a say, in a culture aligned with their values. Either way, some form of emotional or financial ownership of a company culture is in the top three or four attraction factors among Gerrell &amp; Hard&rsquo;s clients today. And yes, salary is important too, especially with the rise in the cost of living. But employers who can really demonstrate that they value employees&rsquo; time, wellbeing and freedom, and are aligned to individual goals, are winning out.</p>
<h3>The G&amp;H culture (in brief)</h3>
<p>Recruitment is a notoriously high-churn industry.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We founded Gerrell &amp; Hard in 2011 and have an average employee tenure of nine years, with six out of nine employees having been here for over a decade.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We feel very lucky with the&nbsp;<a href="/meet-our-team">great people</a>&nbsp;we hired, but we also do our best to keep them happy with a flexible working culture: we work a nine-day fortnight and some of our team work a three-day week to accommodate family commitments or lifestyle choices. We&rsquo;re fortunate in being agile enough to do this, but we&rsquo;re also proof that it can work: we don&rsquo;t measure KPIs as many recruitment firms do, instead preferring to hire good people and get out of their way&mdash;and our numbers speak for themselves. Many of our clients are exactly the same. We&rsquo;re all in the right space to live and breathe these factors, knowing that if you keep employees happy, productivity follows.</p>
<h3>Some questions</h3>
<p>How many brilliant employees quit because they&rsquo;re not allowed to come back to work after maternity, paternity or sick leave on reduced hours?</p>
<p>How many talented individuals would stay put instead of continually changing employers if they were offered true flexibility and measured on productivity?</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s not easy to be flexible, aligned and open, but it&rsquo;s where businesses are winning today, and it&rsquo;s a conversation we have almost every day with our clients.</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>As Facebook owner&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/meta/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meta&nbsp;</a>was fined&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/22/facebook-fined-mishandling-user-information-ireland-eu-meta" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a record-breaking &euro;1.2bn</a>&nbsp;for violating EU data privacy rules in time for GDPR&rsquo;s fifth birthday, Nick Clegg (now Meta&rsquo;s president of global affairs) expressed alarm that the legislation could lead to the breakup of the internet into national silos. It&rsquo;s a contentious fine that shows how seriously European regulators are taking privacy breaches. This is one to follow, and it could have implications for all of us.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, just what is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/deepfake" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deepfake AI</a>, and much do we need to fear it?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>We&rsquo;d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the subjects discussed here - why not drop a comment under the newsletter on LinkedIn? And&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sector-defined-solutions-verticals-gerrell-hard-ltd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">don't forget to subscribe</a> if you&rsquo;re not already!</strong></p>

Hiring and retaining talent in a transforming world - TechTalent May 23

<p>I want to use this edition to talk about how our markets (and our role in them) are changing. We&rsquo;ve always adapted our model to respond to customer needs, and increasingly find ourselves partnering with clients to identify how specific skillsets can solve problems that cross market boundaries.</p>
<h3>Solving problems</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>While some of our customers operate in traditional markets, the rise in technology businesses whose products and services cross vertical boundaries is one of the defining trends of our sector.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many of the most exciting growth technologies are now designed by multidisciplinary organisations whose focus is solving society&rsquo;s problems, wherever they may be. Meanwhile, old verticals are morphing into new territories: the automotive sector is addressing wider questions about mobility (from the rise of hydrogen and EV fleet and trucks, as we see with HVS (Hydrogen Vehicle Systems) and Volta Trucks) to the diversification of older brands. WAE is a case in point: steeped in F1 heritage, it&rsquo;s now helping to electrify rail systems and design mobility programmes.</p>
<h3>Talent is crossing borders</h3>
<p>Former Dyson chief Jim Rowan is now CEO of Volvo Cars, hired because the brand needed expertise in digital transformation and consumer product innovation. And Dyson replaced him with an automotive expert: Roland Krueger, former president of Infiniti/Nissan. The automotive sector remains best-in-class for engineering processes and automotive engineers are in demand everywhere.</p>
<h3>What&rsquo;s driving candidates?</h3>
<p>New generations of jobseekers are asking, &ldquo;What real-world problems can I solve, and how quickly?&rdquo; Employers that address those questions exert a powerful appeal for jobseekers today.</p>
<p>Engineering jobseekers have a new open-mindedness to changing technologies or sectors. Add to that a dramatic increase in hybrid working and a rise in satellite offices and there are few barriers to prevent people from switching markets. You can live in the north and work for a tech company in London. Candidates are also asking:</p>
<ul>
<li>How passionate am I about the problem I am solving?</li>
<li>Has my project got the right backing from government or investors?</li>
<li>Does this employer allow flexible working?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Technologists today: asking the big questions</h3>
<p>As it becomes increasingly fluid, our sector is defined more by questions than markets.</p>
<p>Instead of seeking someone with experience of building a specific component a technology employer today might ask, &ldquo;who out there has solved a comparable issue in a different market?&rdquo;</p>
<p>And there are bigger questions that will define our sector&rsquo;s (and our own) future. What kind of mobility solutions do we want in our cities? What technological movements will we embrace? How do we transport a growing population around the world whilst reducing our environmental impact?</p>
<p>These are the questions technologists and engineers ask themselves today, and those questions keep the G&amp;H team on its toes! What do you think are the biggest changes impacting on talent and hiring in tech?</p>
<h2>What caught our attention this month</h2>
<p>Coming soon(ish) to a MINI near you? An <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/11/23678471/spike-english-bulldog-mini-bmw-aceman-countryman-cooper-personal-assistant" target="_blank" rel="noopener">intelligent assistant called Spike</a>.</p>
<p>A team of organic chemists and engineers from Link&ouml;ping University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, has demonstrated that working <a href="https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-transistor-wood.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transistors can be made from treated wood</a>.</p>
<h2>Our partners</h2>
<p>We&rsquo;re proud to supply some of the most non-traditional tech disruptors in the sector, as well as some established favourites! Read more about <a href="/partners">our partners</a>.</p>