By: Marna Thompson

There has been a lot of debate in recent months over the quality of South African engineers. There seems to be a perception that our engineers lag behind when it comes to inherent skills in this highly technical sector and that they do not quite measure up to their international counterparts.

Well, I believe the opposite to be true.

When the Gautrain project was in need of a pilot for its specialised tunnel-boring machine, the management team searched the world for the ideal candidate. The perfect person they eventually found was working in Asia. But a closer look revealed he was a South African – born and bred in the Free State – who had honed his skills as part of the South African team working on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

The Cookhouse wind farm, the largest project of its kind in South Africa, is another example where Indian wind power specialist Sulzon was looking for engineers. Instead of brining in Indian technicians, the company recruited South Africans with the relevant skills who could be trained to ultimately execute the project in the Eastern Cape.

In this instance, South African engineers may not have had all the experience this project required, but they were of the right calibre and met the project manager’s particular skills requirements. The upside is that the country gets to retain these new skills – a massive boon for future green projects.

In all my years of working in engineering recruitment, I have never once been asked to find a civil engineer from India or an electrical engineer who used to work for General Electric or even a mechanical engineer from Germany. Nor have I ever been asked to find an engineer who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the US, since Massachusetts University is notably the best university to study engineering, or an aerospace engineer from France.

Instead, South Africa-based engineering clients simply want to know if the candidates are skilled, if they have the relevant (or similar) project experience, and if they are prepared to travel to work in the remote areas where their projects are based.

The demand for South African engineers is increasing every year: in 2015, we placed significantly more engineers than in previous years, of whom only a very small percentage were foreigners.

That is not to say that the industry is without its challenges. There is a huge amount of frustration among South Africa’s senior engineers and specialists over the quality of learning from school to university level. It is not uncommon for new engineers to enter the job market without a sound knowledge of basic engineering principles.

This has prompted calls to raise engineering standards at school level – an objective best facilitated through greater involvement of industry mentors working with school learners and university students.

There is no doubt that our engineers have what it takes to meet the stringent requirements of top-notch engineering clients. The challenge, however, lies in growing these numbers through producing graduates who are prepared to put in the time and energy to gain the experience they need to ultimately help meet the future technical needs of both this sector and the country.

Thompson is a senior branch manager at Network Engineering, a recruitment company in the local engineering, information technology and finance sectors. The company has offered requirement solutions to both clients and candidates for 28 years.