Professor John Perkins’ review of engineering skills, published in 2013, endorsed the view that substantially increasing the supply of engineers entering the labour market would benefit the UK economy. This idea was not new, nor was the concern over the lack of qualified engineers, but Perkins’ call to action served to get government moving on some measures to address the issue in the name of economic stability.
One recent initiative to grow out of the review is an engineering conversion course pilot scheme funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). They have allocated
£1.7 million to 32 universities and colleges to develop 28 engineering and engineering-related computer science conversion courses for graduates who have previously studied other subjects. The hope is that the courses will attract into the sector people who would otherwise not have considered careers in engineering.
Career options
The courses, ranging from an MSc in cyber security to another in food processing engineering, will begin in the 2016-17 academic year. Based on projections of demand, HEFCE expects 1,500 converting graduates to benefit in the first two years.
Darren Watson, knowledge exchange policy adviser at HEFCE, said: “Those graduating from the courses should be in a position to develop careers in either engineering or data science, cyber security and software engineering, according to the course they have undertaken. As well as being engineers or computer scientists, graduates from these programmes will bring the subject knowledge and skills they developed in their previous studies into their work. So the scheme may bring new knowledge into the workplace.”
While a great idea in theory, will attempting to attract graduates from a range of backgrounds into engineering conversion courses work in reality? Research commissioned by HEFCE found that physics and mathematics graduates are particularly suitable for conversion, but courses already exist to recruit people from these disciplines. However, graduates from other disciplines may also be able to enter engineering following a conversion course. Suitable disciplines include biology/biological sciences, chemistry/chemical sciences, materials science, and geology/geological sciences. A biology or chemistry graduate could convert to agricultural engineering, for example.
One way universities are attempting to attract students into the conversion courses is by tailoring them around modern, headline-grabbing technologies, appealing to a broad base of students and also ensuring that they will come out of the courses with skills appropriate for today’s engineering firms.
Taking this approach, Anglia Ruskin University successfully won funding from HEFCE for its MSc in additive manufacturing, the first course of its kind in the UK. Dr Habtom Mebrahtu, deputy head of engineering and the built environment at the university, says: “Additive manufacturing is one of the fastest-growing technologies. Anglia Ruskin has been working on it for a while in terms of research and has developed a system for metal rapid prototyping. We have been using 3D printing in some courses as well. We could see its potential for the future.”
Ford and 3D printer company Photocentric were brought in to help Anglia Ruskin develop the course. Working with industry is seen by HEFCE as a key factor in the success of the engineering conversion courses. Watson says: “Involving employers will mean that the courses are more likely to be in tune with their demands and remain relevant.”
The Anglia Ruskin course will focus on product design and optimisation using additive manufacturing. Students will have access to the university’s engineering labs and workshops at the Chelmsford campus which has benefited from £2 million investment over the past three years. This has seen desktop and commercial printers as well as direct metal laser sintering facilities installed at Anglia Ruskin’s Medical Business Innovation Centre.
The students will be able to use these to design, develop and test engineering solutions in materials ranging from simple plastics through to high-end metal compounds.
Industrial element
Mebrahtu says that ideally they are looking for students from Stem backgrounds who have degrees in numerate disciplines. Supplementary material in manufacturing and engineering will be provided for those who have not studied those subjects before.
Keeping the course grounded in practical tasks is an important aim. “The idea is the students will have an industrial-based project for the final part of the course, working on real-life problems within companies,” says Mebrahtu.
He says he hopes the course, which is looking for an initial intake of 20 students in September, will offer graduates in maths and physics who are involved in industry and “not fitting well” an opportunity to expand their skills and gain employment too.
Keeping it practical is also an objective for the University of Sussex’s engineering conversion MSc in robotics and autonomous systems. The aim, says Dr Helen Prance, head of the department of engineering at Sussex, is to “minimise the theoretical components and reinforce the core subjects, which include control for actuators, mechanics of mechanisms and embedded systems and programming, by allowing the students to practise what they are learning in the lab through a set of project-based courses”.
The university is casting the net fairly wide in seeking potential applicants, looking not only at graduates from Stem backgrounds but also at those with at least a basic maths GCSE and qualifications in psychology, biology, chemistry and even physical geography and economics.
Professor Diane Mynors, head of the school of engineering and informatics at Sussex, says: “We are looking for people who think logically and have experience of handling data.”
Students will be able to take advantage of the new computing, robotics, engineering and mechatronics centre on the campus, which features a range of kit, from mini robots and drone systems to a set-up modelled on the latest factories to show how assembly lines work. Students will also complete a module on management.
Untapped potential
Prance says that up until now conventional master’s degree courses in engineering have had “very low demand” from UK and EU students, and have almost entirely been filled with international students. She adds: “There is a potentially untapped group of people that for various reasons didn’t study engineering at their first degree level but may now realise the potential of the sector. But it’s hard to target a group of people when you don’t know who they are, or what they’re looking for, and get them interested. That will be the hurdle.”
The £50,000 that Sussex received from HEFCE is not only going on the course development but on marketing efforts to reach that hard-to-define target audience. John Haywood, marketing manager at the university, says it has been a challenging process: “We are doing a lot of digital ads and using the most sophisticated targeting we can. We aim to target those who have expressed an interest or maybe already studied degree courses along the lines of maths, physics or chemistry.”
But Prance is confident that the course will be a success. “Everyone involved has been getting support and input from industries, companies and engineering institutions,” she says. “They are all very positive about the initiative.”