The SA Association of Consulting Engineers (Saace) has expressed alarm at the shortage of quality engineers and warned of a possible crisis in the future.

"In less than a generation, South Africa may no longer have a skilled consulting engineering base capable of maintaining the current infrastructure or developing new infrastructure," said Graham Pirie, Saace's executive director,

His comments followed the release of Saace's management information survey (MIS) results to June this year, which revealed that 90 percent of its member firms reported facing increasing difficulties in recruiting quality engineering staff

Saace said this was 32 percent higher than in the previous 12 months, with the six months to June reflecting a 29 percent increase. It added that in last December only 69 percent of firms were reporting difficulties finding engineering staff.

Pirie said this high level of difficulty in finding suitable staff, and the pace at which it had been increasing, was a concern for the industry.

"We are already aware that the South African consulting engineering resource is an ageing one, with the average age of professional civil engineers being over 50," he said.  

The survey revealed that the number of partners and directors had decreased from 11 percent in 2001 to 9.8 percent of total people employed.

Pirie said that while this reflected a change to less top-heavy structures, it also supported the fact that skilled engineers were a declining resource.

The fact that the survey revealed that new engineering entrants to the job market were also at an all time low was of additional concern, he said.

"For some time now the association has been highlighting the fact that there is a shortage of black engineers. However, this survey has shown that firms are now finding it equally hard to recruit white engineers."

But there was some promising news on the transformation front, with the survey showing that across all employment categories, black staff, excluding Asians and coloureds, had risen from 22 percent of total people employed at June last year to 25 percent at the end of June this year.

In addition, an of average of 1.5 percent of the payroll was spent on training and 0.6 percent on bursaries, while 30 percent of firms were spending more than 2.5 percent of their payroll on training.

Pirie said this was good news for the industry as it demonstrated that Saace's member firms were committed to black economic empowerment.