The fire and security industries are industries with a long and rich history.  Major changes in the industry have always occurred with the advent of new technology. The invention of electricity, the rise of the computer and further digitisation: they all had a big impact on the fire and security industry. And when we focus on the past 50 years, it is clear that the industry has continued to accelerate.

What has not really changed so much over the past 50 years, however, according to Euralarm, is the composition of the workforce. The industry is still recognised as a male-dominated field although in recent years there has been a positive shift in the number of women working in the industry. With this change, the industry is diversifying, and the need for women officers is growing.

Attracting young talent

With the baby boomers approaching their retirement date and the aging of the industry becoming more and more apparent, it becomes increasingly important that the European youth is attracted to our industry to build a more inclusive, diversified, greener and digital future. And with 2022 being the Year of the Youth, things seem to fall in place.

Crucial for the industry to address skills shortage

When asked why attracting talent is crucial for our industry, David Scott, Managing Director of Skills for Security answers: “As the industry continues to grow and technology develops, attracting new talent into the sector is key to sustainability and improving the quality of working standards. The UK and Europe have struggled of late with engineer retention, lack of competent and qualified engineers and attracting talent where “unattractive” work is the norm, for example, travel, outside work etc. Of late, there has been a shift in the sector where more and more installers are seeing the benefit of growing their own talent as a model that will provide sustainability for both the sector and their businesses. Over the last three years, we have seen the level of apprentice recruitment in the sector more than quadruple. This is the industry responding to the inevitable skills crisis where there is a reported shortage of around 30,000 engineers needed across the UK. With current levels of recruited apprentices, it will take over 25 years to resolve that skills shortage. We need to recruit and attract ten times the current level of recruited apprentices to resolve the crisis in as little as three years.”

Diversity of thought

On the importance of attracting new talent, Chief Technical Officer Cristina Rivas Saiz of Euralarm industry member and leader in monitored security Verisure adds: “For us to remain at the cutting-edge of our industry, we must have diversity of thought, perspective and culture. That enables us to continue to deliver the next step-change technology to protect our customers even more effectively. At Verisure, we have a wide range of programs and campaigns centrally and across our countries that support diversity in technology and engineering".

“Attracting young people and young talent is an absolute necessity for our industry”, says Patrick Van Liempt, Secretary General of the Belgian security association ALIA Security. “In Belgium we are trying to attract new talent for the security industry because of the shortage of personnel and the rapidly developing market. “Although many people still think that security is part of the electrical installation, our industry no longer needs only electrical engineers. In fact, we are increasingly looking for other types of personnel as our systems are increasingly integrated with IT systems."

Great initiatives, but fragmented approach

There are already many amazing initiatives across the sector that focus on the industry’s diversity and inclusion. Initiatives like Worldskills is just one example of that. “However, the approach is fragmented and not driven by a central body or resource and therefore, the positivity is quite often not shared widely enough”, according to David Scott. “For example, Skills for Security run both electronic security systems and automatic fire detection and alarm systems while Worldkkills UK competition aims to shine a positive light on the sector and promote it to school children across the UK as a career of choice".