Skills for needs: Exploring skill demand, sector influences and the role of training and education in equipping technical personnel in water and sanit

The design and implementation of resilient water and waste infrastructure systems requires a competent workforce to address present and future challenges facing the sector. Although existing assessments provide some insights on human resource requirements, majority of these largely focus on quantity deficits (the inadequate number of personnel) with systematic perspectives on skill requirements (quality) being less salient. Understanding skill demand is essential to responding to human resource needs and informing how training and education can be designed to equip the sector's workforce with the required skillset.
My research aims to study the skill requirements of technical personnel in the sector. To carry out my research, I have divided my study into three interdependent phases. The first phase will assess the skill demand of technical personnel in both government and non-government organisations. The second phase explores the interaction of factors that influence skill demand such as new technologies and infrastructure, It also looks into the enabling factors within these participant organisations and how they affect the absorption of personnel into the workforce. The two phases will apply an ethnographic study approach, through participant observation of a cross- section of technical personnel and diary records of recent graduates joining the sector. This will be supplemented by semi-structures interviews. The third phase will utilise data from the previous phases alongside an evaluation of learning outcomes in identified technical courses within the study country, to explores the role of training and tertiary education in technical training.
The intended impact of my research includes improved active collaboration between education and training institutions and industry practitioners in skills development. The study also seeks to contribute to the evidence base for i) decision -makers to invest in human resources and ii) policies that promote individual and organisational capacity development.

Water-WISER will train a cohort of 50 British research engineers and scientists and equip them to work in challenging environments both in the low-income settings of rapidly growing poor cities and in the changing urban environment of the UK, Europe and other regions with a historic endowment of aging infrastructure. The vision is for a generation of engineers with the skills to deliver the trans-disciplinary innovations needed to ensure that future water, waste and sanitation infrastructure is resilient to the stresses posed by rapid urbanisation, global climate change and increasingly extreme natural and man-made disasters. Our alumni will address the urgent need to re-imagine urban spaces as net contributors to ecological and environmental well-being rather than being net users of vital resources such as energy, nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon. These new leaders will be an essential resource if the UK is to deliver on its commitment to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 6 which calls for universal access to safely managed water and sanitation services, within planetary and local ecological boundaries. This next generation of research engineers will enable UK-based engineering consultancies, manufacturers, and utility companies to grow their share of the expanding global market for water and waste services, for example; in the water services industry from 3% to 10% (an increase of £33 billion per annum) by 2030, and attract significant inward investment.
The research which Water-WISER cohorts enable will form the basis of new innovations in the design and delivery of resilient infrastructure and services. Innovations developed by Water-WISER graduates will inform how growing cities are designed and built in the global south and will be used to inform the re-engineering and replacement of the aging infrastructure on which the UK's water and waste services are currently reliant. Our alumni will form the new generation of leaders who will play a central role in securing a larger share of the international water and waste management consultancy market to UK consultancies. The network of expertise and skills created by Water-WISER will enhance potential for collaborations between major UK players (for example strengthening links between UK consultancy, the Department for International Development, and leading UK water agencies such as WaterAid and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor) and between UK companies and partners in the global south including international investors such as the World Bank, European Investment Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Graduates of Water-WISER will enter industry, academia and development agencies having spent a substantial period (minimum of six months) embedded in an industry or development partner organisation delivering their field-based research. Water-WISER students will thus gain a unique combination of trans-disciplinary training, field experience and cohort networking; they are destined for leadership roles in UK and international engineering and development consultancies, academia, international development banks, international agencies such as the United Nations and international non-governmental organisations.