On one level, the water sector is clearly highly globalised. Multinational firms supply equipment around the world. Multinational design firms have global footprints, and French, Spanish and British firms provide design, build and operate services on every continent.
But how easy is it for water professionals to move internationally?
Even though the global design firms have a presence on every continent, in most countries domestic design firms are dominant…certainly in Australia the home-grown firms take away the bulf of the work.
I see a lot of movement on the UK-Gulf-Australia-New Zealand axis, and between the subcontinent and the gulf, and of course the European water giants like to have their people on the ground in every country they operate in. Beyond this I don’t see too much liquidity between countries. There is mysteriosly little flow of engineers into and out of United States, perhaps partly because of the largely closed-shop engineering certification system they run there.
Beyond the English speaking world, the language barrier starts to kick in. I am interested to hear how much movement there is between Spanish speaking countries and across countries within the Mandarin speaking world?
I think that the major factor in increasing the level of international movement will be the infrastructure cycle. Most governments will not spend significant money on infrastructure until there is a crisis, as we have seen in Australia. As countries around the world run into trouble with climate change, they will look to suck in talent from other parts of the world.
For those that are looking to develop a skill set that will take them around the world to different employers, I would say first of all you have two choices. Firstly engineering design is much more transferable than any other area. From where I am sitting, civil design engineers with pumps and pipes experience are highly employable and have good transferable skills. The other alternative is to develop a very specific skill set a high level in a particular technology or process which is increasing in popularity. The skill shortage in your area will then justify the effort of importing you from overseas.
Barriers like immigration regulation, local regulations and language mean that the globalisation of water is still in its infancy…but things may look very different in ten years time.
