UK supply chain staff shortage

Lack of supply chain and demand planning managers is becoming a national problem, according to Hugh Williams, md of specialist consultancy Hughenden.

Speaking at a networking event organised at Adams Park, home ground of Wycombe Wanderers, Williams said: “The Europe-wide shortage of supply chain and demand planning managers is becoming much more of a national problem.”

He said he was considering taking representatives from supply chain functions and firms on to university campuses during career fairs, so students were exposed to exactly what a career in the area entailed. “No one else really seems to be doing this at the moment,” he said.

There was a need to educate students about what a supply chain job entailed, especially because teaching on the subject at university level tended to be inconsistent. “It’s a bit of this and a bit of that,” said Williams.

Retention of supply chain staff was another issue, he said. “There’s often no clear development path, so when people are recruited they often end up going elsewhere.”

Many firms were choosing to pay a sizeable chunk of recruits’ first year salaries to recruitment agencies to head hunt top quality candidates. The alternative was to take on graduates from scratch and invest significantly in training them up because they lacked the practical skills required to perform their role, delegates at the meeting heard.

The academic world was interested in sales and operations planning as a subject within supply chain studies, said delegates at the meeting, but they were “miles away” from industry requirements.