The UK engineering profession needs to change itself first, before it can expect to attract more young people into engineering....

I was compelled to write this post having just come back from taking some timeout to meet with experts from across the engineering community at St George’s House, Windsor Castle, to discuss the challenges we face in promoting the profession to the next generation. A report will be published in due course that summarises the discussion and agreed actions, but I want to express some personal views that I arrived at and am incredibly grateful to the group for their engaging debate that led me to these conclusions. My thoughts certainly don’t reflect the complexity of the intertwined factors that make this challenge so hard to fix, but they are nonetheless my own personal views.

I think it is widely acknowledged that engineering in the UK has experienced a skills challenge for generations. Key factors appear to have been perceptions of the engineering profession and how engineering is positioned in the education system. For many years the professional engineering bodies have grappled with how best to expend their resources to promote engineering; should we focus on influencing policy-makers, or research how young people learn and develop their attitudes to engineering, or enhance the engineering literacy of education professionals, provide access to advice on routes into engineering, or simply inspire young people from an early age, igniting enthusiasm through exciting projects. All of these attempts have been tried to a greater or lesser extent, with if we are honest, little insight into what actually works and should be encouraged, and what doesn’t work and should actually be stopped because it does more harm than good. 

But despite all of this, there remains a hard truth that means nothing will change significantly unless action is taken first by the engineering community itself. The hard truth is the UK engineering community is not diverse and not inclusive and without change this will continue to hinder the UK profession in improving society and helping find sustainable solutions for the planet in the long term.

The profession must look to change this situation if it can expect to attract a more diverse next generation of engineers. And at the same time, the systems of education, entry criteria, qualifications and registration of engineers must change to stop the perpetuation of the same narrow stereotypes of young people entering the engineering profession.

Attempts to promote engineering to children, teachers, parents and the wider general public will likely be futile, or at least be seen as fake by young people entering the profession (once they are faced with the reality of a non-diverse & inclusive industry) if the above does not change.

The engineering profession needs to take a hard look at itself and initiate change from within to become more inclusive, in order to attract a more diverse workforce in the future. I believe this therefore means that many of the existing Education and Skills strategies need to change to be more intimately linked with Diversity and Inclusion strategies.