• Study identifies London and the South East among seven European locations suited to future industrial growth.

A shortage of “new collar” workers is leaving between 21% and 46% of vacancies in critical emerging roles unfilled, according to a report commissioned by SEGRO.

The report, The New Collar Workforce, draws on Randstad Advisory research covering more than 400,000 job advertisements from about 13,000 companies in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the Czech Republic. It focused on 60 emerging roles across sectors including manufacturing, logistics, life sciences and data centres.

Across six sector comparisons, around 40% of vacancies for site-dependent roles were unfilled, against around 13% for location-flexible roles. Jobs tied to factories, warehouses, laboratories and other physical assets are around three times harder to fill on average.

Combining the workforce analysis with SEGRO’s assessment of logistics infrastructure and regional innovation, the report identifies seven locations where the ingredients for industrial growth are coming together. They are London and the South East, Munich and Southern Germany, Paris and Île-de-France, Rhine-Ruhr, the Dutch industrial and logistics corridor, Northern Italy and Prague.

The research identifies routes for workers in existing occupations, including electricians, mechanics, maintenance technicians and warehouse operatives, to move into emerging new collar roles.

The report points at transferable skills that could help people move from existing occupations into emerging roles, including:

• Electrician: high-voltage/data-centre electrical roles
• Maintenance mechanic: mechatronics/automation technician
• Diesel mechanic: electric-vehicle fleet technician
• Warehouse operative: digitally enabled logistics/inventory roles

Only 9% of Europe’s blue-collar workforce has the identified next-generation industrial skills. About 72% of employees in large companies received training in emerging technologies, compared with 17% in SMEs.

The UK has around 588,000 manufacturing workers, with concentrations around London and the Thames Gateway, the Midlands and Manchester, and the Oxford-Cambridge corridor. The report argues these cannot be treated as a single national talent pool.

Paul Dunne, managing director, operations, digital and customer at SEGRO, said: “The next industrial revolution will create enormous opportunities, but technology on its own won’t deliver them. Businesses need people with the skills to install, operate and maintain increasingly sophisticated systems, and they need the buildings and infrastructure where that work can happen.

“For businesses making long-term investment decisions, access to skills is becoming an important part of the location equation alongside land, power and connectivity. The places best equipped for future growth will be those that can bring the workforce, infrastructure and innovation together.”