Big Bang at Parliament

Supporting Young People Into Engineering

Big Bang at Parliament brings the Big Bang to the Houses of Parliament with young people who have entered The Big Bang Competition showcasing their incredible and innovative projects to MPs and members of the House of Lords, alongside a host of example STEM activities.

The event also highlights the importance of participation and engagement in introducing engineering as a career to young people as the world recovers from the pandemic and the clear significant role engineering while place in building Britain's future.

Students who had attended any (one or more) STEM careers activity, were 3.5 times more likely to know about what people working in engineering did than those who hadn’t attended any. They were also 3.4 times more likely than those who hadn’t attended a STEM careers activity, to consider a career in engineering.

Read and find out more with these EngineeringUK research reports.

Engineering Brand Monitor

EngineeringUK has run the Engineering Brand Monitor (EBM) survey annually since 2010, asking young people aged 7 to 19, parents and STEM secondary school teachers about their perceptions, understanding, and knowledge of STEM and engineering. This year, for the first time, responses from parents and young people to the EBM can be linked and the association between responses from each examined.

Download the Engineering Brand Monitor, parents and students report (published April 2022)

Download the Engineering Brand Monitor, teachers report (published December 2021)

Women in engineering

Published in March 2022, this briefing summarises how the gender composition of the engineering workforce has changed over the last 11 years. It shows that while the percentage and number of women in engineering has increased, these strides have been concentrated in certain roles and industries, with women more likely to be in related – rather than core – engineering roles and working in industries outside of what is traditionally deemed to be the ‘engineering sector’.

Levelling up engineering skills

Published in January 2022, this briefing provides an overview of young people’s and their parents’ knowledge and perceptions of the different routes into engineering careers drawing on regional insights from EngineeringUK’s latest Engineering Brand Monitor survey. The briefing draws attention to the regional variations in this knowledge and the perceptions of different routes, and discusses what this means for routes into the engineering workforce. It finishes with a series of questions for policymakers to consider in light of the forthcoming levelling up white paper.

Securing the future: STEM careers provision in schools and colleges in England

Published in June 2021, this is a joint report by EngineeringUK and 7 engineering and careers organisations. It calls on government to invest £40 million in improving access to careers provision for students in schools and colleges in England to enable more young people to understand the opportunities available in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers and so support the drive to build back better and ’level up’ across the UK in a post-Covid world.

Our careers, our future: STEM careers provision and young people

Published in September 2020, this briefing provides an overview of young people’s experiences and perspectives of careers provision and engineering, including their access to careers activities since school closures in March 2020. It draws on findings from our recent survey Young People and Covid-19 and our Engineering Brand Monitor to evidence the importance of engineering and STEM careers provision in the context of uncertainty about the future that young people are facing. It also highlights how opportunities to learn about and pursue pathways into engineering could be made more accessible and equitable.

Read more and download the report

Read more briefings and research findings.