The aerospace industry is booming. Recently there have been a number of developments in the aerospace sector that have emerged such as, lower interest rates, financing being readily available, carrier-operating costs coming down (partly because of lower oil prices), demand surging in emerging markets, and the world’s major economies improving. This has resulted in companies in the supply chain raising their demand for qualified specialists to keep up with evolving technology, customer preferences and rising expectations. Adam Morgan, Aerospace Specialist gives us his top five aerospace trends that are currently impacting the industry…

1. Ageing workforce and lack of graduates entering the industry

The aerospace industry is expecting strong growth in Europe. To keep up with this growth, the industry must attract top engineers and increase the intake of graduates and/or apprentices. However there is an industry-wide shortage of new engineers entering the aerospace trade; it is predicted that there is a need for an increase of 12,500 qualified engineers per year. Last year 120,000 engineers graduated from Universities in Europe but only 10,000 started a career in the aerospace & defence industry. 2. Rapid air travel growth in the emerging markets especially Asia & the Middle East Currently a fifth of all air travel is in the emerging markets. Boeing predicts that by 2032, a third of all air travel will be in the emerging markets. Demand is high, particularly in the Asia Pacific region for commercial aircraft where Boeing is expecting to deliver over 40% of its overall orders for single aisle

aircraft. This, combined with the increase of VIP/Private aircraft in the Middle East, is widening a number of European suppliers customer bases. 3. An increase in greener and more efficient air travel Since the 1970s, the airline industry has cut its per-passenger, per-mile consumption 75 percent, enough that travel by air now takes less energy than by car, on average. The gains outpace those of buses, trains, and auto­mobiles. This is down to three key factors:

Better Aerodynamics

Optimized Engines

Lighter weight structures.

This trend is set to continue with further investment in the above as well looking into alternative fuel, electric powered and solar powered flight - you may have recently seen a lot of press circulating about the Solar Impulse 2 flight; the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel. 4. Aircraft interiors and changing customer expectations The aircraft interiors market is driven by the “passenger experience“ and is fuelled by a significant number of retrofit programmes. This market is forecasted to be the largest growth area of all sectors for the aerospace industry. It is predicted that this industry will grow by 8.7% over the next 10 years. This growth is driven by the commercial sector, competition between airlines for customers and an increase in demand for VIP & Business Aircraft. Aircraft seating remains the largest growth area, but in-flight entertainment is on the rise and you can expect some interesting innovations over the next 5 years. 5. System Safety Software Airborne software is system dependent. Whoever is writing the code has got to know every aspect of the hardware, and the software must be bug free. Software is handling an increasing percentage of the jobs done on an aircraft but where the big changes are happening is data handling and craft to craft communication. The US air force recently released a video showing that tiny drones will soon be able to swarm together for the purpose of surveillance, targeting and assassination! Boeing is working to create a swarming system for larger drones and it is expected to filter through to the commercial market. Software System Safety is one of the markets that is booming in sectors such as automotive and rail already, aerospace is now competing for the best engineers in this market.

* * * All of the above trends fundamentally lead to more jobs, keep an eye out for the rise in the below vacancies:

CFD/ Aerodynamics Engineers

Combustion Engineers

RAMS Engineers

Software System Safety Engineers

Compliance Verification Engineers/ Airworthiness Engineers

Validation & Verification Engineers