Engineering is a wide and changing environment and potential loss of knowledge within the NZ engineering industry is significant.

There is a need for additional workers to replace retiring older workers and currently, an estimated 500 additional professional engineers and engineering technicians are required each year nationwide to replace people who are moving out of the engineering discipline, mostly because of retirement but also because of shifts into other job areas.

As time goes on, new graduate engineers will increasingly be replacing older, more experienced engineers. When this occurs it will be critical that employers have succession systems in place to ensure an effective transfer of knowledge.

As technology and legislation moves forwards, so does the need for modern day engineers across all disciplines.