The UK composites industry has been talking about growth for a long time. But there is a fundamental question behind any forecast for increased sales, new applications and greater adoption of composite materials: Who is going to deliver it? 

Professor John Summerscales, Professor of Composites Engineering at the University of Plymouth and a long-standing committee member of SAMPE UK & Ireland, believes the industry still faces a significant problem. 

The 2016 UK Composites Strategy, published by the Composites Leadership Forum following consultation with the UK supply chain, identified the potential for the UK composites market to grow from £2.3 billion in 2016 to £12 billion by 2030. 

Importantly, it also identified skills as a potential constraint, warning that the existing pool of people was small and that increasing demand was already becoming a major inhibitor to growth.  

Ten years later, Summerscales does not believe enough progress has been made. “Despite a small group of people seeking to address this problem, progress is too slow,” he says. “Those willing volunteers already have to deliver the workload from their primary employment.” 

Moving People Around Does Not Create More People 

Recruitment can solve a skills shortage for an individual company. It does not necessarily solve the problem for an industry. At a company level, an organisation facing a shortage of composites engineers can recruit experienced people from elsewhere in the sector, potentially offering higher salaries to attract them. For the company making the appointment, the vacancy has been filled. For the wider composites industry, however, the total number of experienced people available has not changed. 

Summerscales describes the situation as creating a “circular economy of experienced employees”. “We need more people now, not a circular economy of experienced employees,” he says. 

His own tracking of composite engineering opportunities appearing through LinkedIn also points towards continuing demand. Summerscales recorded 127 vacancies in 2024, 451 during 2025 and 498 by 20 August 2026. The figures are not intended as a comprehensive measure of every composite vacancy in the UK and include multiple reposted opportunities, but they illustrate the sustained recruitment activity he is seeing across the sector. 

Competition for a limited pool of experienced people also has commercial consequences. If nothing changes over the next five years, Summerscales believes the result could be “escalating employment costs with the consequent hit on profitability and, in due course, company survival.” 

The challenge, therefore, is not simply helping employers compete more effectively for the people who already exist. It is increasing the number of people entering, developing and remaining within the sector. 

Where Should the Industry Focus? 

The Composites Leadership Forum Skills Development Group, working with Composites UK and the IOM3 Composites Leadership Team, identified seven areas requiring attention. 

These included engaging young people with composites careers; developing apprentice cohorts; supporting practical skills development; creating routes for professionals moving from other industries; developing advanced training and mentoring; creating comprehensive skills roadmaps; and improving the way organisations capture and transfer knowledge. 

Asked which requires the greatest attention today, Summerscales highlights three. 

Coordinating Apprentice Development Between Companies. Rather than individual organisations approaching recruitment entirely independently, there is an opportunity for companies within a region or cluster to think collectively about the talent available. An unsuccessful candidate for one apprenticeship may still be an excellent prospect for another employer nearby. A more collaborative approach could help the sector retain people who have already expressed interest in advanced manufacturing, rather than losing them when only one position is available and there are several capable applicants.

Creating Structured Pathways for Professionals Moving from Other Industries into Composites. If the sector continues to insist on previous composite experience for every role, its recruitment pool will inevitably remain constrained. There are engineers, technicians, and other professionals working in adjacent industries who have valuable transferable skills. The question is how effectively the composites community can give those people the additional knowledge and training required to transition. Previous work through the HEFCE Catalyst Composites Curriculum project explored a model in which specialist modules could be delivered by the university or college best placed to teach them, with individual modules also available as Continuing Professional Development courses. Approaches such as this could provide a more flexible route into the sector than expecting every new entrant to have followed a conventional composites education pathway from the outset.

Comprehensive Skills RoadmapsComplementing existing technology roadmaps for composites and net zero.Understanding where a technology is heading is only part of the equation. Industry also needs to understand which skills will be required to develop, manufacture and commercialise it, where those skills currently exist and where future gaps are likely to emerge.

Knowledge Needs to Move Through Organisations Too 

Recruiting more people is only one part of the skills challenge. Companies also need to consider how effectively experience is transferred between generations of employees. 

Summerscales points to the importance of sharing information so that “the team moves forward rather than individuals hoarding know-how to protect their individual position.” 

For industries where significant technical knowledge is accumulated through years of practical experience, the loss of an experienced employee can mean the loss of much more than an individual member of staff. Processes, judgment, lessons from previous programmes and practical knowledge that have never been formally documented can disappear with them. 

Creating opportunities for early-career employees to shadow people in more senior roles is one practical way of addressing this. It also means treating mentoring and knowledge transfer as an important part of engineering practice rather than something that happens informally when individuals happen to have time. 

A Role for Professional Communities 

This is an area where Summerscales believes organisations such as SAMPE can make a practical difference. Members of professional engineering institutions and technical societies have already demonstrated an interest in their own Continuing Professional Development. They also sit within networks that cross company, university and sector boundaries. 

That creates opportunities to support people at the beginning of their careers through training, mentoring, professional development and exposure to experienced engineers beyond their immediate employer. 

SAMPE UK & Ireland is already exploring how to strengthen this support, including mentoring for Young Engineers and Students members, professional development and chartered membership activities, student competitions, and opportunities for younger members to gain greater exposure to industry. 

No single organisation can solve the composites skills challenge, and much of the work required will depend on employers, universities, training providers and professional bodies working together. 

But there is one change that every organisation can begin to make. The industry needs to stop viewing skills solely as a competition for existing talent and start treating development of the overall talent pool as a shared responsibility. 

Recruiting somebody from a competitor may solve today’s vacancy. Developing another engineer helps build tomorrow’s industry.