Wolfson looks to England for engineers

Published on Sunday 20 August 2006 00:46

A SCOTTISH company providing microchips for the latest media gadgets says it can no longer find enough top-quality design engineers in the country that gave the world John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham Bell.

In what could be seen as a further decline in the country's skills base, Wolfson Microelectronics has turned to England to find urgently needed staff to meet its expansion plans.

The company, which makes parts for the Apple iPod music player and Microsoft's Xbox games console, has been a hit since floating on the London Stock Exchange in October 2003 and now wants to expand. It will be looking for small bolt-on acquisitions and more microchip design engineers to help meet demand.

However, marketing vice-president Julian Hayes said the firm was struggling to source staff locally due to a shortage of specialist engineering graduates in Scotland.

"Wolfson has always gone for what I would describe as the top 10% of engineering calibre, but for some time now we've had real difficulty in recruiting and just cannot find what we need here," said Hayes.

"We've already said that we are acquisitively minded, and so we now intend to try England to add to our staff."

Earlier this year the Edinburgh University spin-out company's founder and chief executive David Milne said he had plans for substantial recruitment at Wolfson.

The company anticipates that more mobile multimedia deals will lead to its portfolio of portable products topping 100 - supplying microchips for a growing range of devices such as iPods, DVD players, MP3 music players, flat-screen televisions, games consoles, digital cameras and mobile phones.

Wolfson outsources all of its manufacturing to Asia and has bases in Tokyo, China, Taiwan and India.