The highways and transport sector is starting to see fewer graduate entry-level roles 'because of the advent of AI', industry leaders have warned.

This year's Chartered Institution of Highways and Transport (CIHT) conference saw speakers address worrying trends in skills and human resources, including a situation where graduates seem to be struggling to find jobs even though the sector is complaining about a wider skills shortage.

A panel debate made up of CIHT chief executive Sue Percy CBE, Blayne Cahil (director at Carrington West), Sam Foster (business development director for Matchtech) and Kate Carpenter (vice president of CIHT and director of road safety for Jacobs) discussed the drivers and pressures facing the sector and some of the solutions that could help.

According to Mr Cahil, we are facing a skills gap of 40,000 per year in transport, civil engineering and environmental sustainability. Despite this, however, he also noted that ‘the CIHT employment survey showed that 36% of the workforce is about 55 years old and we are seeing less graduate entry-level roles because of the advent of AI'.

This raised some concerns for him, as ‘at a time when we need to be widening the funnel bottom, we're going the other way'.

Another aspect of the ageing demographic is not just a failure to recruit new entrants, but also the loss of experienced workers with a wealth of knowledge.

Ms Percy stated: ‘It's well reported that you've got a lot of people in the 50 to 55 plus age range who are going to be leaving the sector, with all that knowledge going out. So it's not just about how you recruit in, it's also how you retain at all levels.'

Another point that Ms Carpenter was keen to raise was the resilience of the staff themselves.

‘If the humans fail,' she stated, ‘the projects fail, and the infrastructure fails as well. We're very good, as a profession, at measuring metrics around money, around project delivery, around billability, around margin. How much do we measure metrics on humans? How much do we measure how happy people are?'

One indicator that she highlighted was the retention level as a metric for staff satisfaction: ‘If you've got a low turnover, that's probably a good way of looking out for people'.

‘In structures, we think about serviceability limited stake. When your building or your bridge gets towards reaching this capacity, it starts cracking. When you get to ultimate limit state, it falls down. We tend not to see that for humans. So encouraging people to speak up and recognise when they're struggling and speak up when they're recognising an employer supporting them, that's probably the biggest thing we can do as a profession.'