The importance of great outreach
Effective outreach is essential to broaden the talent pool and inspire more young people from underrepresented groups into engineering and technology careers. Our research shows that the more interactions young people have with industry professionals, the more likely they are to consider a career in the industry.
So planning, promoting and delivering great outreach couldn’t be more important. We base everything we do on evidence and research to deliver high quality, engaging activities for schools. We also share this knowledge with the engineering and technology outreach community, to support other organisations to do the same.
Top ways to reach young people
From school trips to in-school workshops, there’s lots of ways to engage young people. Delivering outreach directly to schools is an effective way to engage young people and teachers with engineering careers. Teachers are one of the major influencers of young people. Our research shows that teachers need to have knowledge, confidence and experience to provide quality STEM education. This is key to giving students a good understanding of engineering careers and how to get into them. Outreach that engages with and empowers teachers to support their students is a great way to reach and inspire young people.
Hands-on, practical activities act as a key incentive to engage young people with STEM subjects. Our research shows that for students in years 7 to 9, 52% say practical activities are a motivating factor to learn science. Designing outreach where young people can be interactive and creative will support learning more about engineering and technology careers.
Planning your outreach
The planning and preparation stage of any project are really important and it's the same for outreach activities and programmes. It's vital to understand what's already available and to consider your delivery model. You also need to work through your target group, how you aim to reach them and how you will measure the impact of your efforts.
Promoting your outreach
Once you’ve got a great activity, it’s time to get it out to schools. We can support you with just that using the Neon website. Designed to help schools find quality engineering outreach activities, Neon is a great place to promote your outreach. There are no fees for providers or for schools to sign up.
All activities featured on the Neon website meet our quality criteria, including around careers messaging, inclusivity, learning outcomes and raising aspirations. We offer outreach providers the opportunity to feature on Neon and support you to meet these standards.
We’re able to help you target your promotion to schools in specific regions and areas, ensuring that teachers can find experiences that are right for their students. Providers can say where their activity is available, and which schools can see it. We are also able to target promotion to schools with high proportions of young people from underrepresented groups.
Delivering your outreach
Through our own activities, industry connections and extensive networks, we have a wealth of knowledge to share on outreach delivery.
There’s lots of options for delivering outreach. From face-to-face activities and workshops to virtual work experience and online interactions.
On Tomorrow’s Engineers, we’ve gathered a range of resources to help you to design and deliver engineering activities for young people or enhance your current offering. Here you’ll find practical support for delivery of both digital and in-person activity.
Evaluating your outreach
Evaluating your activities is essential to allow you to develop successful and impactful activities for young people. At EngineeringUK, we run strong evaluation projects and use insights from these to improve our work.
When creating your evaluation strategy, consider your aims, objectives and who you want to learn from. Young people, teachers, and parents all offer different and useful outlooks to determine your success. Determine how you will evaluate your work – will you use in-person surveys, focus groups or online questionnaires? What is proportionate for your programme? You could also consider pre- and post- event evaluation to determine your impact and potential changes in perception of STEM careers.
Find out moreTomorrows Engineers
The Tomorrow’s Engineers website collates resources from across the engineering technology sector to support you to create great outreach. Resources, tools and research reports are shared to support collaborative and inclusive practice.
Resources can be found on the following topics: research and evaluation, careers inspiration, delivering outreach activities and equity, diversity & inclusion.
Got something you’d like to share? We want to see it. Get in touch with us to discuss sharing your best practice on the site.
Useful resources
Our resources are designed to help you plan, deliver and evaluate inclusive, high impact engineering and technology outreach activities for schools. These are hosted on Tomorrow's Engineers.
Careers inspiration
How can you strengthen careers messaging in your outreach so young people see the wide range of careers available to them in modern engineering and tech?
Delivering inspiration activities
How can you make your activities really impactful for young people? Find practical support for designing and delivering your activities, both online and in person.
Equity, diversity and inclusion
How can you make sure your outreach is inclusive and engaging for all young people? Understand EDI in the context of engineering outreach design and delivery.
Research and evaluation
How do you know what works? Get support on getting the right feedback and understanding the impact of what you do – so you can improve delivery.
Tomorrow’s Engineers Live –
24 February 2025
Hear from industry experts, STEM outreach providers and engineering role models. This is the perfect event for anyone delivering engineering and technology outreach activities. Don't miss out!
