Cni: university courses misaligned with market needs

There is a structural imbalance between supply and demand in the engineering labour market, which affects the civil sector in particular. Besides being a quantitative issue, it is also a qualitative one.

According to an estimate by the study centre of the National Council of Engineers (Cni), there are approximately one million engineering graduates in Italy today. Of these, just over 250,000 are registered and among them only 72,000 work as full-time freelancers, a number that has been declining for a couple of years; another 23,500 engineers are employees and work part-time. These figures are a snapshot of a sector that does not seem to attract young people very much: suffice it to say that in 2004 there were 4,200 young engineers newly enrolled in Inarcassa compared to just under 1,500 in 2024.

On the qualitative front, companies are looking for profiles that integrate technical competences and transversal skills (see article above), while the training offer continues to favour disciplinary focus.

'For 25 years, with the approval of Presidential Decree 328/2001,' explains Domenico Perrini, president of the Cni, 'a process of progressive specialisation of the figure of the engineer has been underway, also starting with university education. But Italian society does not yet seem entirely ready to deal with highly sectorial profiles: rather, it tends to favour figures with broader competences, capable of adapting and reconverting in the course of professional activity'. According to Perrini, in fact, 'the market, both public and private, is not yet structured to demand high levels of specialisation and so demand clashes with the supply of the academic system. In the meantime,' he continues, 'the figure of the engineer has changed profoundly: at one time he was mainly associated with the realisation of building or infrastructural works and artefacts, whereas today he is confronted with much broader areas and different operating methods'.

Cni data also show that in 2023 civil engineering graduates will account for just 6.6 per cent of all engineering graduates, a sharp decline compared to the 1990s, when they accounted for around one third. This reduction reflects the shift towards more innovative fields that are perceived as more spendable on the market (management, IT, biomedical). However, Perrini reveals, "almost 60% of the positions are difficult to fill, mainly due to a lack of candidates (over 70% of cases) and, to a lesser extent, inadequate preparation".