Rejuvenating mining education in the UK.

The revival of the undergraduate Mining Engineering degree at the UK’s Camborne School of Mines and its launch of a Degree Apprenticeship are headtorches of light against a gloomy backdrop of reported dwindling recruits to the industry worldwide. Indeed, the new apprenticeship course even garnered a mention in the UK Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022.

To support the government’s strategy, IOM3 consulted 50 key stakeholders to assess the skills landscape further. The talent gap: critical skills for critical materials report confirmed a lack of access to skilled workers as a significant and growing risk facing the sector and the UK economy.

Enrolment in relevant education and training is decreasing in the UK and countries like Australia and the US, with some courses being cancelled, as seen at Camborne and elsewhere.

And so, the report shares how the future talent pipeline is unlikely to meet the demand for skilled individuals across the value chain to, in turn, fulfil the booming demand for minerals and metals amid the green transition.

The UK Mining Education Forum launched in 2022 to develop mining education nationally. It found the UK needs more than 60 new mining engineering and minerals processing graduates every year to sustain the domestic mining sector, and at the time there had been no new undergraduates since 2019.

But there is now some light at the end of the tunnel. The growing interest and attention from government on critical minerals and materials for the energy transition is an opportunity to relight enthusiasm for mining and its role in society.

Professor Patrick Foster FIMMM, Head of Camborne School of Mines and Professor in Mine Safety, certainly feels the time is ripe for a comeback in the public discourse.

Read the full article by Alex Brinded on the IOM3 website here