Jamie Shaw, CEO of the Shawton Group of Companies, shares his perspectives on the key trends, challenges, and opportunities in the manufacturing and engineering industries. With over 15 years of experience in the engineering and energy sectors, Jamie took over the family business from his father in 2011. A graduate of the University of Leeds with a degree in Civil and Structural Engineering, Jamie now leads Shawton Engineering and Shawton Energy with a focus on innovation, sustainability, and workforce development.
Industry Trends and Challenges
What do you see as the most significant trends currently shaping the manufacturing and engineering industries?
"Innovation and adaptability are key. One example of this is understanding the trends in employment. The average workforce age in the engineering sector is over 50, which is a legitimate concern. As a result, we’re seeing an important move towards more apprenticeship schemes in the sector – as we all understand the importance of transferring that industry knowledge and experience over the next decade.
Another key trend is being driven by the Government’s decarbonisation goals. The target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is shaping our manufacturing and engineering industries, with more businesses seeking to reduce their reliance upon fossil fuels and decrease their carbon footprints.
The energy side of our business engages with these industries all the time. As their energy demand is high, energy bills are usually in their top three business costs. As a result, more businesses are exploring generating their own renewable energy on site – lowering their energy bills and reducing their carbon footprint in tandem."
What are the biggest challenges your company is facing right now, and how are you addressing them?
"There are always challenges around labour shortages in our sector, which is why we’ve brought on ten new apprentices this year in our engineering business, and we prioritise the upskilling of our staff.
From an energy perspective, while businesses are often keen to install on-site commercial solar solutions, we sometimes find that the complex subject of energy can be daunting to clients and slow down the decision-making process. To help mitigate this, we try and demystify the subject and support our customers. We also have a live rooftop solar project at our Shawton Engineering HQ in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside, that businesses can come, view, and understand for themselves."
Innovation and Technology
How is your company leveraging new technologies like automation, AI, or IoT to stay competitive?
"AI and IoT is an area that is growing in the energy space. The use of blockchain technology, for example, is allowing generation of energy at one site to be matched with real-time consumption at another site. This not only allows financial savings, but businesses can leverage roof or ground space at a site where energy usage is low and use it at another site where it is high.
Also, all our customers have access to dashboards and real-time monitoring of their on-site solar assets – enabling them to see exactly how much renewable energy they’re producing."
Can you share an example of a recent innovation at your company and its impact on your operations?
"In 2022, in a bid to futureproof our Group of businesses, we invested in a 375kWp solar energy solution from Shawton Energy for our Shawton Engineering HQ – an 80,000 sq ft facility across three acres.
We took out a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement, meaning there was no upfront CapEx – allowing us easy access to renewable energy without it impacting our cash flow.
It took four weeks to install, and we’re now generating our own solar energy on site. It’s estimated that it will help our business achieve savings of £2.9 million on our energy bills over the next 25 years."
Sustainability and Environmental Impact
What steps is your company taking to reduce its environmental footprint and improve sustainability?
"As mentioned above, we’ve invested in our own live solar energy project at our HQ. The installation is saving us over £110k annually on our energy bills but, more importantly, we save 43 tonnes of carbon being produced annually.
It’s important to show our customers that we walk the walk and not just talk the talk."
How do you see sustainability influencing the future of manufacturing and engineering?
"An increasing number of businesses within these industries are starting to recognise that sustainability, and how it feeds into their ESG strategy, is important for future business – both in attracting new clients and new talent.
With Scope 3 emissions becoming a real focus for large businesses, there’s a real push to demonstrate working with a sustainable supply chain, to deliver on their objectives. Therefore, if manufacturing and engineering businesses don’t factor sustainability into their strategy, they’ll likely miss out on winning business in the future."
Workforce Development and Skills
What skills do you believe are most critical for the future workforce in manufacturing and engineering?
"The world is advancing at a rapid rate, meaning businesses within all sectors need to consistently prioritise upskilling and innovation. Standing still is not an option.
While the manufacturing and engineering industries will always require skilled and experienced human beings to make decisions and carry out manual tasks, the rise in digitalisation will mean that technology proficiency will continue to become increasingly important.
Sustainability knowledge will also play an important role in both sectors.
For engineers, green engineering knowledge will be key – this includes integrating environmentally conscious practices and circular economy principles into projects. Similarly, for manufacturing, knowledge of green manufacturing practices and energy-efficiency solutions will be important in helping the sector to decarbonise."
How is your company investing in workforce development and training?
"Attracting, nurturing and retaining talent is really important to us across our entire business.
There’s a well-documented shortage of talent available to recruit, and therefore, bringing in people from other industries, or younger people, and upskilling them, has become very important to us. By doing this, we’ve seen high employee retention, too.
We’re so proud of our local heritage and being a big employer in the Merseyside area, however, our energy business takes a more national approach – with remote working becoming increasingly important to bring key specialist talent in. This means that we have team members based all over the country – spanning the south coast right up to Scotland."
Globalisation and Supply Chain Management
How has globalisation affected your business, and how do you manage risks associated with global supply chains?
"Global supply chain has always impacted our business – be it raw materials such as steel or solar panel production.
During the pandemic, those supply chains became challenging and other geo-economical factors impacted them again.
However, we work with a very strong, robust, and ethical supply chain and have excellent relationships with them. This means that although prices have become variable, access to product has not stopped. Our procurement teams work hard to get value for money, enabling us to pass the benefits on to our customers.
In a competitive environment across all our businesses, it’s very important that materials and products are procured efficiently to ensure we’re competitive.
However, our respected reputation and ability to deliver quality on projects means we don’t solely rely on our price. We believe our ability to deliver high-quality projects and service levels, as well as bringing our decades of expertise to the table, means customers want to work with us, even if we’re not the cheapest. As in most businesses, you get what you pay for, and we will never compromise on quality."
What strategies are you employing to ensure resilience and flexibility in your supply chain?
"Our procurement team work hard to retain great relationships with our supply chain but are constantly looking at new channels for materials and products.
It’s an ever-evolving area and we must keep on the pulse of what is happening, so we work hard not to switch off and become complacent. That’s the key – being proactive in a continuously shifting marketplace."
Leadership and Business Strategy
How do you maintain a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within your organisation?
"We believe it’s about inclusivity. We encourage all teams throughout the business to bring passion, innovation and, of course, hard work to the table.
We have an open-door policy with the team, and it’s often that the conversations had on the engineering floor, in the kitchen, or in the car park, are where some of the best ideas can be floated to me.
We always look to prioritise social value too. Whether that’s engaging local colleges for recruitment or helping national businesses with their ESG targets and commitments.
We’re constantly looking at ‘what’s next’ around the corner, too – things like how technology investments can help our business, future innovations in the energy space, or how our engineering business can deliver for different sectors and requirements.
We want to be great at what we do today, but we also want to see what we can be great at tomorrow."
What is your vision for the future of your company, and how do you plan to achieve it?
"As we look ahead, we’re in a great position to grow our position in both the engineering and energy spaces.
Although we’ve been around for almost 40 years, we want to continue building our brand awareness, as well as ensure our market position grows over the next five years.
Our ambition is to retain as much of our talent as possible, but also diversify each of the businesses into new areas as and when those opportunities arise. Therefore, agility, vision, and innovation are key to delivering on that ambition.
But while it’s important to keep your head above the clouds to clearly see the wider strategic business vision and trajectory, it’s equally important to spend time sitting in the driving seat to ensure the business is operating efficiently. It’s important to have this dual focus and awareness so that business continuity can be achieved."