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Building services engineers work in a wide range of roles within the sector. Those working at higher levels, as consultant engineers, engineering technicians, supervisors or managers, vary in their educational and career background, with some progressing from trade or craft roles and others entering the industry after achieving higher education qualifications. Many building services engineers become business owner-managers without any further management training.
Foundation degrees, when delivered with the right amount of support for learners from non-academic backgrounds, and with flexibility to enable students to continue their day jobs, provide an opportunity for those who wish to progress from hands-on to more senior roles in the sector to boost their knowledge and skills, while working towards a recognised qualification.
Foundation degrees also offer the prospect of re-training staff with non-building services engineering (BSE) degrees and, for those with a relevant qualification, they will provide additional knowledge including addressing new legislation and regulations, health and safety, and business skills.
SummitSkills has been working with employers, education providers and Foundation Degree Forward to develop a foundation degree framework specification for BSE. Designed to create a system that allows providers to offer a foundation degree that truly meets employer needs, the framework specification is a template for foundation degrees that support progression from trade roles towards supervisory, managerial and professional careers.
During employer consultation conducted as part of the Sector Skills Agreement, SummitSkills found that awareness of the benefits of foundation degrees is low. Yet, once employers appreciate how foundation degrees operate, they are increasingly turning to them to provide the higher level of knowledge, skills and understanding they need to develop their existing workforce and new entrants and trainees.
Employers already value the work-based learning elements as a means of connecting principles and theory to applications. Some have also found that by offering the foundation degree, from which employees can then progress to a full degree, is giving them a competitive edge in recruitment.
BSE is a continually evolving sector and foundation degrees are an additional tool to ensure those working in the sector have access to the training opportunities they need to progress and succeed.
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There is an obvious need for the industry to be more energy efficient and pay more attention to the ways in which energy is both used and wasted. Do you think we have the products on the market to meet our needs?
