New in 2023/24

Science Education Tracker

We worked in partnership with the Royal Society supported by funding from Wellcome to publish the Science Education Tracker 2023, a survey of over 7,200 young people’s experiences of STEM. Following the 2016 and 2019 surveys, the 2023 survey tracks evidence on key indicators for science engagement, education, and career aspirations among young people in England including questions specifically about engineering for the first time.

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Climate Schools Programme

We launched our Climate Schools Programme, with support from the Helsington Foundation. The programme aims to help integrate solutions to climate change and the associated careers in engineering and technology into school lessons. It is designed to be delivered by teachers to empower students to explore innovative solutions to tackling climate change and discover brand-new skills. The programme provides schools with curriculum-linked resources across English, science, and geography lessons. And we launched the ‘Tackling Climate Change’ resource to support STEM and Climate Ambassadors volunteering in schools.

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Apprenticeships report

We held a Parliamentary launch of the report of our inquiry (co-chaired by Lord Knight and Lord Willetts) into the decline in engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships for young people. The ‘Fit for the future’ report is a 5-point plan to grow and sustain engineering and technology apprenticeships for young people.

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Some outcomes

We evaluate our schools’ activity with young people and teachers in different ways, tailoring our approach to the activity. And we survey our stakeholders, including our Corporate Members, Professional Engineering Institutions and supporters, annually. The feedback we receive helps us iterate and improve what we do.

What young people told us

• Energy Quest had increased their knowledge of engineering jobs (72% of students)
• Attending The Big Bang Fair made them want to find out more about STEM jobs (75% of students)
• Participating in The Big Bang Competition made them want to do more STEM activities in the future (81% of students)

What teachers told us

• Climate Schools Programme was ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ (95% of teachers)
• The Big Bang Fair had made them more likely to suggest students consider an engineering career (73% of teachers)
• The Big Bang at School was accessible to students of all abilities (94% of teachers)

What stakeholders told us

EngineeringUK is seen as a trusted voice on:

• approaches to engage young people in STEM by 94% of stakeholders responding
• equity, diversity and inclusion in the engineering sector by 86%
• what enables, deters or inspires young people to pursue a career in engineering and technology by 86%

EngineeringUK is seen as effective at:

• providing insight and guidance to stakeholders on evaluating STEM engagement activities by 74% of stakeholders responding
• providing access to information and guidance on engaging underrepresented audiences by 73%
• providing access to advice on how to align and develop effective STEM engagement plans and practices by 71%
• delivering campaigns to change young people’s perceptions of engineering and tech by 72%
• highlighting to young people that they can make a positive impact on the environment through a career in engineering and tech by 78%
• helping teachers identify engineering and tech focused STEM engagement activities by 60%

The Tomorrow's Engineers Code helped members:

• 76% of Signatories agree that being a member of The Code improved the way their organisation understands how its activities relate to other STEM outreach activities
• 59% agree that being a member of The Code has improved the way their organisation evaluates its STEM outreach activities
• 61% agree that The Code has improved how they collaborate with other organisations involved in STEM outreach

Some of our plans for 2024/25

Our commitments to environmental sustainability and equity, diversity and inclusion underpin all our work. Knowing that environmental sustainability is a topic that’s important to young people, particularly girls, we use it to inspire them about engineering and technology careers. Organisationally we commit to reducing our environmental impact and becoming a net zero organisation, reducing all our carbon emissions by at least 90% by 2040 in line with the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Our school activity is focused on inspiring more young people from groups underrepresented in engineering. We want them to be better informed about careers in engineering and technology and the variety of routes into them. This is how we aim to improve both the number and diversity of those joining the sector’s workforce.

Research and evidence

We will be working with a research partner to secure funding for a longitudinal research project. The project will explore the extent to which multiple STEM engagements impact on young people’s later attitudes and choices.

Leadership

We will be working with partners to develop/test/deliver actions to step up the number of girls who are on pathways to engineering and technology careers at age 18.

Activities for schools

We will build awareness of our new EUK Education brand with teachers, careers leaders and school leaders. We want more of them know more about and benefit from access to all our activities for schools. That includes Energy Quest, Climate Schools Programme, The Big Bang programme, Neon, Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, bursaries and careers resources.

Advocacy

We will be engaging with the new government, in partnership with the engineering community and National Engineering Policy Centre. We will advocate for action to address policy and delivery challenges in STEM and careers education and in workforce planning for engineering and tech.