Addressing the Society of Operational Engineers she said: “As an engineering community we need to stop hiding our lights under bushels, start blowing our own trumpets and herald what a fantastic career engineering can be.”
Praising the 1000mph ‘Bloodhound’ car – preparing to break the land speed record – she said the project epitomised the brilliance of British engineering: “This is British engineering at its peak, leading the world and pushing back the boundaries of what is achievable by man and his machines. Without people with the right skills, however, this project would never have come to fruition.”
Engineering needed a resurgence throughout Britain, she said, but warned that the looming skills crisis could cost the country £27 billion a year: “We need an extra 800,000 additional science, engineering and technology technicians to avert a crisis.”
She asserted that young people needed to know what wonders await in a career in engineering and mourned the loss of STEM graduates choosing careers outside the sector.
“The problem we have is that too many are choosing to apply their skills outside of STEM sectors. More than 12,000 engineering graduates are working in financial services, for example – that’s undoubtedly good news for financial services.”
Semta is the not-for-profit employer-led organisation ‘engineering skills for the future’.
