Philip Smart | Adelaide

With Australia’s defence forces embarking on an unprecedented range of acquisitions, build programs and development, Adelaide’s Mark Ryan believes the nation needs to plan how it will produce the talent needed to manage them effectively.

As executive director of the 2016 Mobility and Skills Global Forum, to be held at Adelaide’s Hilton Hotel from November 22 to 24, Ryan is bringing together a host of workforce planning experts to discuss the way forward for defence and other major Australian industries.

Speakers such as Australian Institute of Project Management chief executive officer Yvonne Butler, SA Economic Development Board member Goran Roos and PwC Global Mobility Division UK Principal Katrina Cooper will offer views on how Australia can meet the needs of its future development. The event’s agenda includes sessions on the role of global mobility in enabling large-scale national capability projects, a perceived Australian industry STEM skills deficit and the continuous shipbuilding forecast for labour demand.

"Major corporations are now seeking to attract the best qualified and experienced engineers, project planners, and logisticians to deliver major large scale projects in Australia."

“Workforce planning is becoming more essential as major corporations are now seeking to attract the best qualified and experienced engineers, project planners, and logisticians to deliver major large scale projects in Australia,” Ryan told ADM. “Other countries are offering exciting and well paid opportunities, so how can Australia remain competitive?”

“Skills management and the structural change needed to transform our defence industry to a new and capable techno-skilled force will be both challenging and necessary. Reports from industry, experts and commentators will be delivered at the Mobility and Skills Forum. Some of these reports are alarming and will set a horizon that government, institutions and industry will need to move towards.”

According to Ryan, Australia is on the cusp of major projects in fields as diverse as submarines, communications, robotics, nuclear waste, mining and agribusiness, but the defence industry will need to ramp up education and training to meet these needs against competition from other sectors.

“When you look at the project timeframes for defence alone, the requirement will be staggering. Should mining conditions improve then defence industry will have further complication in getting the right people to deliver the projects.

“I believe that this issue is the most critical one to face the defence industry for a few decades. How can the defence industry ramp up quickly to meet the demands of high-volume contracts coming from almost every quarter of defence hardware, infrastructure and ICT?”