Give Technicians ‘Key Worker’ Status

There’s a word in the German language – fingerspitzengefühl – which literally means ‘the sense on the end of your fingers’ and it relates to the intuition and awareness that comes with years of experience doing a particular job. Scientists and technicians possess this skill in spades.
Yet to maintain the health of the life sciences sector in London adjacent to the demands of the public sector, we need to employ people with fingerspitzengefühl to deploy scientific knowledge and, more crucially, we need to look after them. Without a pool of key technical workers in areas of high demand, any rebalancing of the UK economy away from financial services is doomed to fail.

The phrase ‘key worker’ entered parliamentary usage in 1932 with an emphasis on industrial, manufacturing and technological skills, when, until 1938, the concept of entire ‘key or reserved industries’ emerged, obviously in anticipation of the mobilisation for war.

During the war years, agricultural workers were included due to concerns about maintaining food security. Post-war, key workers again were firmly located in manufacturing and technological industries, such as technicians, and this classification continued to the early 1970s, reinforced by the post-war Development Areas.

Given the on-going U.K. housing shortages and privileged key worker access, it was always going to be an important distinction. The inclusion of nurses as key workers started in 1970-1973 and gradually the classification was enlarged to include teachers, speech and language therapists, uniformed police and even local authority planners. By the turn of the 21st century, key workers were exclusively public sector. Technicians were out and planners were in.

Our reluctance to look after our technicians is linked to our attitude and commentary around wealth creation in the UK and, particularly in London, about how any rebalancing of the economy away from financial services is still a pipedream. Technicians have never had a political champion and they’re not seen as a critical component in wealth generation, but that perception needs to change.

The value of intellectual property isn’t just who owns what, intellectual property is about scientists who have the knowledge to deploy that patent knowledge. And when we say scientists, you have to include technicians and all elements of the scientific labour ecosystem, not just the post-docs and post-grads who can up-sticks and move to Basel, Boston, San Diego or other areas of high demand. However, the technician class have higher exit hurdles and therefore U.K. economy ‘stickiness’.