Gemma Peach
Education and Skills Policy Manager, EngineeringUK
Gemma joined EngineeringUK as Policy Manager in 2024. She brings experience from a range of public and third sector positions. These include foles at the former Department for International Trade at the British Embassy in Paris, the Department for Education, and the Policy and Public Affairs team at Middlesex University.
Gemma is focused on shaping education and skills policy that broadens opportunity for underrepresented groups. She supports the team’s policy engagement work to improve pathways for young people into engineering and technology. Gemma also leads EngineeringUK’s policy work in Scotland.
A busy time for policy and public affairs
From Big Bang at Parliament and Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, to the Autumn Budget and our Education Scotland roundtable, the final months of 2025 were certainly jam packed. In this blog, I’ll recap the policy and public affairs team highlights from the end of 2025. I'll also look ahead to what’s coming up in 2026.
Big Bang at Parliament
We were delighted to host our annual Big Bang at Parliament reception in the House of Commons on 24 November, my first since joining EngineeringUK.
It was a fantastic opportunity to discuss challenges within the STEM education and skills space. We met with MPs, Peers, and policy colleagues from across the sector to celebrate some of the Big Bang Competition entrants. We were thrilled to welcome 17 parliamentarians and 20 young people from 8 schools across the UK, who presented their inspiring and truly innovative projects.
Highlights from the event included meeting Grace Palmer, a T Level student from WMG Academy of Engineering in Solihull. Grace was awarded the senior engineering winner in The Big Bang Competition 2025. She spoke passionately about her project ‘Thrive Transfer Aid', inspired by the mobility challenges faced by her cousin. Grace was joined on stage by Dame Chi Onwurah MP and Toby Perkins MP, who applauded the creativity and variety of STEM projects showcased.
Curriculum and Assessment Review
The long-awaited final report and government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review was published on 5 November.
We were pleased it included a strong focus on science, with the government committing to a triple science entitlement for all pupils.
We also welcomed its emphasis on the importance of inclusion, as well as the clear pledge to enhance climate education.
We are now working with DfE officials to support the implementation of its recommendations. This includes discussions on how government can embed gender equity throughout curriculum design and delivery to strengthen inclusion.
We are also supporting the implementation of a new enrichment framework in schools. We're keen to make sure that extra-curricular STEM activities are included in (and named in) the framework. This will enable more young people to have access to enriching STEM activities alongside the arts, sports and life skills activities.
Autumn Budget
At the end of November the Chancellor unveiled her highly anticipated Autumn Budget.
Despite the well-documented pressures around public finances, there were some big wins for skills. This included a commitment to fully-fund apprenticeships for under-25s in SMEs.
In our response, we welcomed the funding boost for the Growth and Skills Levy. However, we called on government to make sure this investment is matched by equally ambitious goals for pre-18 STEM education.
Apprenticeship pathways into engineering
The government has published its annual data on apprenticeships for the 2024/25 academic year and it paints a mixed picture for engineering and technology.
There were some notable positives, such as a 5% increase in engineering and tech-related starts from the previous year. This was driven by a big increase in Digital Technology apprenticeships. However, it was concerning to see participation by young people under-19 continue to decline, particularly at Level 2.
Celebrating Tomorrow’s Engineers Week
In November, we celebrated Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2025 and all the fantastic STEM outreach work ongoing across the UK.
A record 61,286 young people engaged with our content for schools during the week, which included an assembly, lesson plans, videos and activities.
To mark this national campaign, our team worked with Liberal Democrat Skills Spokesperson Ian Sollom MP to table an Early Day Motion (EDM) highlighting the importance of Tomorrow’s Engineers Week.
Tomorrow's Engineers Week will return again in 2026 – stay tuned for the date announcement.
Consultation on V Levels and Level 2 pathways
The policy team has been hard at work on pulling together evidence for our and the National Engineering Policy Centre’s submission to the government’s ‘Post-16 level 3 and below pathways’ consultation. We’ve been gathering insights and perspectives from our corporate members regarding V Levels, a proposed Level 3 vocational qualification intended to be a third Level 3 pathway that would sit alongside A levels and T Levels. We will share our finished submission on our website later in January.
House of Lords debate on girls in STEM
On 18 December, the House of Lords held a debate on the government’s progress in increasing the numbers of girls studying STEM, led by Baroness Anji Hunter. We worked with the Gender Pathways Collective to brief peers ahead of the debate, calling for a range of measures from government. These included investing in STEM enrichment and guaranteeing high-quality engineering encounters and workplace experiences for girls by Year 9.
Discover our Gender Pathways Collective
Growing collaboration in Scotland
Scotland is improving its sciences curriculum – and that’s a huge opportunity for the engineering and technology sectors.
When I joined EngineeringUK last year, one of my priorities was to understand how our policy and public affairs team could play a greater and meaningful role in Scotland’s education and skills landscape. One strand of this work has been collaborating with Education Scotland, the Scottish Government agency leading the current review of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence.
This is part of the new 10 year Curriculum Improvement Cycle, set up after an OECD review of the Scottish curriculum. A key recommendation was to make curriculum review more systematic. This means that the Scottish sciences curriculum is changing – and that creates a golden opportunity to better prepare young people for fast changing careers in engineering and technology.
We know industry is a key partner here. Employers understand the skills they’ll need in their future workforce and the barriers that young people face when accessing engineering pathways. So, working with Education Scotland, we brought together industry representatives from across engineering and tech for a roundtable discussion in December. We wanted to explore how the new sciences curriculum could be more future-oriented and how it could build clearer career pathways across subjects. We also explored how to give teachers and learners the time and space to explore the breadth of opportunities engineering offers.
Some clear themes emerged and we’ll be publishing a short briefing outlining the key takeaways from the roundtable later this month.
The year ahead
Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, I’ll be continuing work on another Scotland-focused project. This will explore ways to make it easier for employers to navigate the differences between the Scottish and English apprenticeship systems. It will also look at whether there are practical steps that governments could take to improve coherence between them.
Our team also have lots of other exciting plans in the pipeline for 2026. These include further work around the Growth and Skills Levy and foundation apprenticeships, as well as deepening our engagement with MPs and Peers.
In the more immediate term, we’re looking forward to Tomorrow’s Engineers Live on 10 February and The Big Bang Fair in June.
Find out more about our Policy and Public Affairs team’s work
When I joined EngineeringUK, one of my priorities was to understand how our team could play a greater and meaningful role in Scotland’s education and skills landscape. One strand of this work has been collaborating with Education Scotland, the Scottish Government agency leading the current review of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence.
— Gemma Peach, Education and Skills Policy Manger, EngineeringUK
