The council says the term ‘ElecTech’ has been created as a way of referring to what it calls a substantial, but fragmented, horizontal industry sector driven by a common skills agenda. It claims ElecTech covers businesses, institutions and academia involved activities ranging from research and manufacturing to installation, maintenance and support. Areas of interest are said to include electronics hardware, electrotechnical hardware and firmware. According to the group, ElecTech brings together more than 45,000 companies employing more than 1million people and contributing around £100billion to the UK’s GDP.
Tony King-Smith, the council’s CEO, said: “We believe the government must recognise the tremendous value of embracing horizontal sectors for the UK economy, based on industry groups where a set of related skills are the binding force.
“We call on the government to ensure it includes horizontal industry sector deals leveraging the substantial and broad-based return on investment across every region of the UK, by actively supporting strong horizontal industry sectors like ElecTech in its future Industrial Strategy policy planning.”
According to ElecTech, the UK is a world leader in everything from high performance computers and graphics to industrial motor controllers and Formula 1 telemetry and respected the world over for its ElecTech capabilities.
“The ElecTech Council looks forward to working closely with many of the vertical industry sector organisations and institutions” concluded King-Smith. “Our ElecTech businesses are not waiting for anyone – we already have significant initiatives underway, including stimulating STEM education, apprenticeships from technician to degree through the Trailblazer scheme and international standards and regulation. We need the government to come alongside us to ensure the UK is recognised as a world leader in ElecTech.”
Meanwhile, the ElecTech Council has made what it calls a comprehensive submission to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy as part of the Green Paper consultation.
In the submission, it calls on the government to recognise and leverage the ElecTech sector as an influential industry sector touching everyone’s lives, driving productivity, economic prosperity and growth.