Port Workforce Survey

The Maritime Skills Commission has partnered with Port Skills and Safety (PSS) to gather data on the current UK ports workforce and identify skills gaps affecting the current workforce and the potential future skills needs. 

PSS is renewing its commitment to skills and in January will be launching a new five-year skills strategy to ensure that members, and the wider UK ports sector, share best practice, support port people and identify future skills needs. As part of this plan, PSS and the MSC have commissioned the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) to undertake the same Skills Intelligence Modelling (SIM) process that is widely used in the rail sector to forecast future skills needs. 

'In developing our new skills strategy, it became apparent that there is a lack of data on the current workforce which restricts ports’ ability to plan and recruit for current and future needs,' said Debbie Cavaldoro, Chief Executive at PSS. 'Therefore, we are delighted to be partnering with MSC and NSAR to gather data on the current UK ports workforce which we can use to model the skills need.' 

SIM is an innovative Skills Forecasting Tool which NSAR have developed over several years after it was first commissioned by the UK Government to forecast the future workforce skills requirements for the UK rail sector. The analytical power of the SIM has been embraced both by other sectors and internationally for strategic workforce planning, identifying skills shortages, and forecasting the impact of planned investment projects on the future workforce. 

Throughout December and early January, PSS and the MSC will be asking the UK Port Sector for their help in providing workplace data. This data will be collated by National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) on behalf of PSS and in accordance with General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR).

A video demonstrating the SIM can be viewed here.

The Workforce Data Collection document can be downloaded here and submitted following the notes in the guidance tab.