A GROUP of college students have created technology which shows skill gaps in the aerospace and engineering industries.

Seven computing students from Burnley College Sixth Form Centre have created a “dashboard” which monitors and tracks vacancies and skills gaps across multiple sectors.

The dashboard will allow employers, educational and apprenticeship providers like Burnley College and Themis to work strategically together.

It’s all part of the Lancashire Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing (AEM) Watchtower project – a £1 million initiative with members including BAE, Safran Nacelles and Rolls Royce and is a collaboration between Lancashire County Council and the North West Aerospace Alliance.

Charlie Glover, 18, who is one of the pupils involved, said: “The main focus of the Watchtower project is to see how Covid has impacted the industry as a whole and give experts in the industry the right information they need to ensure a quick and effective recovery.

“There’s a huge amount of data which needs to be assembled, filtered and then displayed in a way which is useful and instantly informative to users.

“It took a lot of discussion as team and hard work to create the product as it currently stands.”

The final product will involve a large amount of highly sensitive and confidential data – and when the programme was demonstrated to members of the AEM a dummy set of figures were used.