Industry digest: Why military veterans have the right skills for automotive

Not only do veterans bring technical experience, they offer soft skills like people management, teamwork, discipline and resilience.

With Remembrance Sunday approaching, it’s good to hear about the many ex-armed forces personnel now forging careers in the automotive industry.

Regular readers of this column will know how seriously I take the skills shortages across the sector and the need for businesses to prioritise their talent strategies, including sourcing staff from outside the industry. 

Organisations are having to fish in new talent pools to plug their skills gaps, and the armed forces community is proving as fertile as any in delivering new recruits. 

Not only do veterans bring technical experience in areas such as engineering and handling high-voltage equipment, they offer soft skills like people management, teamwork, discipline and resilience. 

This has been recognised by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), who have done some fantastic work to promote the recruitment of ex-military personnel to the industry, largely through the trail-blazing Mission Automotive initiative in partnership with the armed forces charity, Mission Motorsport, and the Royal Foundation. 

At the latest count, close to 60 SMMT member companies were working with the armed forces to help former servicemen and women to build on their military skills and retrain for qualifications and roles in the automotive sector.

One of the earliest adopters of the armed forces talent pipeline, Jaguar Land Rover, recently announced that it had recruited more than 1,500 former military veterans over the last decade.

One former military man who crossed over to automotive is particularly dear to my heart.

My late dad, Bernard ‘Bunny’ Ennis, served as an RAF rear gunner in WW2 and very nearly lost his life when his aircraft was shot down over the Bay of Biscay in 1945, forcing him to eject and parachute into the sea. 

Despite sustaining a broken collarbone, broken ribs and broken ankles, he managed to link up with his injured skipper in the water and inflate a small dinghy. The skipper died in his arms before a rescue boat arrived 24 hours later.

After the war, he extended his passion for all things mechanical by forging a career repairing and rebuilding mainly classic cars, including Miss Marple’s Ford Popular for the BBC TV drama series.

His harrowing wartime experience never left him, though and he was a highly active campaigner and fund-raiser in the military veteran community throughout his life.

In his memory, my company will be launching the Bunny Ennis Fund in the New Year to provide an annual training bursary for an individual already working in automotive or who hopes to join the industry.

Applications are now open and, if you’ll forgive the shameless plug, you can find out more details on the Ennis & Co website.

If you’re wondering how my father came to be known as Bunny, it’s because he was given a pair of what he thought were male rabbits when he was child but who turned out to be a male and female. He ended up with more than 20 rabbits and a nickname that never left him.

Please do check out the fund details, or pass the message on if you know someone who would benefit from the training bursary. 

As an industry, we need all the skills we can get.

*Lynda Ennis is the founder of global automotive and mobility executive search company Ennis & Co.*