New website to help inspire the next generation of diverse engineers

Accessing some of the latest thinking and evidence of what works to encourage young people from diverse backgrounds to consider engineering as a future career will be much easier with the launch of the new Tomorrow’s Engineers website developed by EngineeringUK (@_EngineeringUK).

Tomorrow’s Engineers brings together free advice and guidance, curated from across the engineering community, to support practitioners in providing young people with engineering careers inspiration.

The website includes the latest thinking on a range of topics, from how to run virtual events and top tips for ensuring an inclusive approach, to how to survey young people and improve engaging outreach activities.

The aim is to develop, curate and share a range of tips, resources, guidance and evidence to improve practice and the collective impact of the engineering sector as a whole to help inspire more young people from all backgrounds to consider a future in engineering.

Dr Hilary Leevers, Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, said: “At EngineeringUK it is our mission to support the wider engineering community in inspiring the next generation of engineers to understand the thousands of future engineering roles available. From infrastructure, to helping the UK achieve its Net Zero aspirations, to working alongside scientists and health care specialists to deliver vaccines to combat coronavirus, engineering and technology provide a breadth of exciting careers.

“We know that young people’s educational and career aspirations have already been affected by the pandemic, so it’s more important than ever that we get this type of outreach activity right. That’s why we’ve refreshed Tomorrow’s Engineers to provide resources to help practitioners illustrate that engineering can give young people the opportunities they need and want – careers with enormous societal value, which are critical in responding to global challenges.

“We want the site to provide a hub for everyone who funds, designs or delivers engineering engagement activity to share their learnings on how to improve so that together we can achieve the collective impact needed to see an increase in the number and diversity of young people entering engineering careers.”

The Tomorrow’s Engineers website includes resources for practitioners that:

1. Promote the wide range of careers in modern engineering
2. Support the design and delivery of engineering activities with young people in mind
3. Focus on equality, diversity and inclusion – reaching all young people with engineering inspiration
4. Share what learnings from research and evaluation, and how to evaluate better.

Teachers who may have used previous versions of the website are encouraged to instead visit and use the brilliant engineering experiences on Neon, a digital platform that gives teachers easy access to quality assured online and offline engineering outreach activities and careers resources.

Practitioners from the STEM community are encouraged to recommend resources for inclusion on the Tomorrow’s Engineers website and say what else they would like to see on the site.