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Written by James Bourne

Microelectronics are being seen as a key part of the UK’s industrial future – but there are many connections which need to be made in order for their potential to be realised.  

The recent publication of the UK government’s Modern Industrial Strategy saw various ‘interventions’, in the words of the report, announced. These included improving the semiconductor talent pipeline, launching two new innovation and knowledge centres (IKCs), boosting the UK’s chip design capability, and establishing a new UK Semiconductor Centre. Total funding for these projects is at £84 million.  

But what about those at the coalface? How can the UK fulfil its potential – and funding – by making the most of its workforce? 

Ahead of Microelectronics UK, Ben Hanley, owner of recruiter Enigma People Solutions, shares his insight around what the UK is doing well and where it can improve, as well as how those in the industry, whether looking to upskill or get their foot in the door, can stand out. 

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Tell me a bit about you, your career to date and how you came to found Enigma People Solutions. What does your day-to-day look like and what is the most satisfying part of your role? 

I have been in recruitment for over 25 years now. I started Enigma People Solutions in 2005 and so it is now over 20 years old. At its heart it is about working with great companies that need to find the right people to help drive forward a dream of new technology.  

The people we find for our clients are essential to the next phase of growth of their business. Typically, my day is spent talking with people. When I started, that was over the phone – very much smile and dial. You were either selling a service to clients or delivering the service by engaging with candidates. That hasn’t changed much. Back in the day we would meet candidates at appointed offices or meeting places and conduct interviews and video the interviews on a camcorder, burn the interviews onto CD and send that shortlist of interviews to the client. That is all done online now through Microsoft Teams, but the process is pretty much the same. The reward and satisfaction is when you see that you get a great match for a client and candidate and that that helps the company and the career flourish.  

Finding those key people that will make the dream work is highly satisfying. With that then comes a relationship knowing that we made an impact. So it is special, important and selected work that we do. Probably about 3-4 hours a day is in Teams meetings for me. Whether it is finding key technical leaders for a new division in a multinational company or finding that technical lead to be the lynchpin in a startup or early-stage company. 

A lot has been written about a purported global talent shortage in the semiconductor industry. According to Deloitte, by 2030 more than one million additional skilled workers will be needed to meet demand. How do you assess the landscape currently? 

Both positive and negative. The UK’s semiconductor industry is relatively small (employing just over 27,000 people, with around 19,000 in technical roles (IC design, R&D, software, etc.) but it is high value, innovative and thought leading. About 39% of current staff are expected to retire within 15 years, especially in senior engineering and technical positions. There are not enough qualified graduates; only 870 graduates per year enter semiconductor roles into the UK. UK-based student intake has stalled and companies continue to struggle to attract and fill roles for experienced engineers. Training and developing engineers is time consuming, expensive and a drain on experienced engineers’ time so there is constant pressure to bring people in who can “plug in and play”. Of the nearly 80% of UK chip design companies that report vacancies for engineers, more than half say current degrees don’t fully meet industry technical needs.  

We also have a terrible and embarrassing imbalance of underrepresentation with less than 18% of the technical workforce being female. India and China are over 20% and the European average is around 22% so we are missing out on talented people to employ by not attracting more women and girls into the industry in the UK. We are seeing strong competition from other regions of the world – India, for one – to encourage companies to set up not just manufacturing and testing but design teams as well. I know we have clients who have made decisions to set up teams in other markets when the UK was a potential choice. The UK remains less expensive than the US to employ engineers but is still more expensive than many other countries and regions and that affects jobs and where companies expand operations.  

What is in our favour is strong engineers who work collaboratively, but if we cannot fill the jobs then they do go – and will go – elsewhere. 

There are some encouraging activities to try to address this. 

• Semiconductor STEP Programme: The UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF), with a £4.75m DSIT grant, launched STEP to build a pipeline across school outreach, university bursaries, design courses, and master’s conversion training via partnerships like Sheffield and Southampton. 

• Additional funding: In June 2025, UK government allocated £35m over four years to extend and scale STEP, including masters-level conversion, outreach, and design training. A new UK Semiconductor Centre also received £19m to serve as a hub. 

So in my opinion we as an industry have work to do to: 

• Strengthen the attraction and engagement of young students and especially girls to choose electronic engineering. 

• Make sure university students are being trained and developed to be quickly of use to industry. 

• Make the UK a destination of choice for the engineers we want to attract and make it easier to hire them – assuming that does not block off UK candidate progression. 

For technical leadership roles, how easy/difficult is it for people to acquire the leadership skills coming from a technical background? 

I think this is one of the hardest elements. 

Firstly, most engineers are trained as engineers through school, university and early career; it is mostly about technical proficiency and capability. The reward for doing a good job is promotion away from those technical skills into a new and often untrained arena of people management and leadership. As an industry we are poor at mentoring, coaching, training and developing engineers into leadership. I think companies need to do more to prepare and develop those promoted and invest in leadership training programmes. 

What are the key leadership skills you look for or advocate for? 

When I interview people, I am looking for those soft skills; communication, listening, engagement and support. Hard to evidence but vital: decision making, choosing direction and so on. We are looking for evidence and background that shows how they have led, when they have failed, and what they have learned from their experiences. 

Leadership is not a bolt on or patch; it is an evolving, learned, experiential process. Just being confident, forthright and a strong personality is not enough. The listening skills and empathy that many women display make for great leadership qualities. 

How can candidates across microelectronics stand out in the market right now? 

I think there are several ways candidates can distinguish themselves: 

• Keep developing your skills work on in demand skills such as EDA tools or AI hardware: 
  - Proficiency in sub-5nm process technologies (e.g., 3nm or 2nm) is in high demand 
  - Understanding of packaging technologies like FOWLP, 2.5D/3D ICs, and interposer-based systems. 
  - Deep experience with Cadence, Synopsys, or Mentor Graphics – especially for physical design, verification, and DFM (design for manufacturing). 
  - Experience in designing accelerators or working on edge AI chips can set you apart. 

• Demonstrate systems-level thinking: 
  - Go beyond transistor- or layout-level discussions. Show how your work impacts power, performance, yield, and cost. 
  - If you're in design, show familiarity with firmware or software interaction. If you're in fab/process, understand the product end-use. 

• Become niche/industry specific: highlight projects in automotive (ADAS), defence, medical, or high-performance computing (HPC), which often need high reliability and long lifecycles. 

• Practice communicating the business impact of your work: 
  - Translate technical contributions into business value. Example: “Reduced die size by 8%, saving X per wafer.” 
  - Write and present clearly – whether in internal design reviews or at conferences 

• Network smartly: 
  - Attend industry conferences (in person or virtual). 
  - Follow and engage with thought leaders in microelectronics on LinkedIn 
  - Join forums or groups for semiconductor professionals – both for learning and for visibility 

What did you make of the UK government's recent Modern Industrial Strategy report in terms of the microelectronics sector, particularly its pledges with regard to semiconductor investment and innovation (establishing a new UK semiconductor centre, £35 million investment in a UK-wide skills programme)? 

I think the feeling is it is a good start, a good step but way short of the type of investment that is needed to really compete globally. 

It is dwarfed by the European Chips Act worth up to €43 billion in public and private investment until 2030, aiming to raise EU global chip production share from 10% to 20% and other national schemes, like France pledging €6 billion and Germany up to €10 billion, 

So yes, a good start but much more ambition and action is needed to really build a sector with even stronger and more coordinated R&D and with skills investment aligned to allow the sector in the UK to compete globally. 

Is enough being done to 'capitalise on [the UK's] globally recognised research base and existing strengths in chip design, compound semiconductors and next generation technologies including photonics', in your opinion? If not, what else can be done? 

When you consider what is being done there is a lot happening so we should not be too down on ourselves. 

Alongside initiatives from the UK government’s £1bn Semiconductor Strategy, to STEP, to the new UK Semiconductor Institute launched in 2024 to act as a national coordinator for skills, R&D, and commercialisation, there are others. 

UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) has backed PhotonHub, Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult (CSAC), and Innovation & Knowledge Centres (IKCs) at Southampton and Bristol. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) supports deep tech training through Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) in photonics, nanotech, and compound semiconductors, while Innovate UK funding enables SMEs to scale photonics, quantum, and RF technologies via pilot lines and cross-sector applications. 

Alongside this there is also regional cluster building. South Wales (CSconnected) is globally known for compound semis; Scotland is a growing hub for photonics and quantum engineering (e.g. University of Glasgow, Fraunhofer CAP, Technology Scotland), while Cambridge and Bristol are leading IP centres for chip design (e.g. Arm, Graphcore), EDA, and AI silicon. 

There really is a lot happening but more can be done. The UK is rich in research but poor at translating it into commercialised hardware. One of my clients was talking recently about the imec model which takes public and private partnership for prototyping and deep tech integration. 

The UK could do with a National Design Centre for AI & Communications Chips, co-located with industry and academia. In Photonics many of my clients would like to see something like a Photonics Innovation Ecosystem building on the growing clusters in Scotland and south-west England Campus with collaborative R&D and fabrication facilities. There are those who suggest the reintroduction of enhanced credits for semiconductor design, photonics, quantum and advanced materials R&D. 

There is more that can be done in terms of building a skills pathway and pipeline from school to university and into industry and definitely more can be done to attract female and underrepresented groups so that we make use of all the talent we are missing out on. 

What advice would you give to those in the microelectronics sector right now, whether they're looking to upskill or change career? 

The past couple of years may have felt a little rocky for many. Global tech stocks have been impacted by pipeline and supply issues through longer timelines for essential metals. The dip in car manufacturing has impacted some markets and destabilisation via concern over impact of tariffs and other global and macroeconomic challenges have lead for companies to be cautious and that has impacted job numbers of late. I think we are seeing the end of that and hopefully any quiet trimming and redundancies may be behind us now. So, fortune favours the brave. 

To me the UK microelectronics ecosystem is at a strategic inflection point. I think we will find strong demand, government backing, and career headroom over the next 5-10 years. Whether you're designing chips, integrating photonics, or enabling AI at the silicon level, now is the time to act. 

If you are at university and coming into industry in the next couple of years work in labs or industrial PhD/postdoc programmes but make sure the work is industry relatable rather than just for science sake if you want to transition to industry. 

If you are already in the industry try to get working on R&D projects and find a way to make yourself useful and become the subject matter expert. 

If you are looking to transition into the industry roles in semiconductor supply chains, design ops, field applications, or technical sales are growing and often open to engineers with systems, physics, or EE backgrounds. 

You can develop your skills via targeted part-time learning (e.g. courses from EDA tool vendors, UKRI Catapult training, ARM or RISC-V online academies). You can take advantage of STEP (Semiconductor Talent and Engagement Programme) which funds conversion and skills development. 

For everyone and anyone looking to progress their career, get involved in networks and attend workshops and events Microelectronics UK is a great place to start (!) and look out for and get close to scaleup businesses.  

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Ben Hanley is owner of Enigma People Solutions. The company notes it has a 100% retention rate with all candidates placed in the past year, with more than two decades of experience ‘laser-focused’ on electronics, photonics, and semiconductor recruitment.