Suggested by an expert panel of engineers and technologists, a new “recruitment campaign from the future” also features potential jobs such as living city shaper and cosmic food cultivator. Published today (4 November) on National Engineering Day by the Royal Academy of Engineering, Now Hiring: The Engineers of 2076 aims to “inspire the next generation of innovators”.
The main challenge for lunacycle creators, according to one prospective job advert, will be “building bicycles for roads where gravity barely holds you down”. Principally aimed at lunar life but also featuring Mars-like imagery, the ad says the role “will include designing wider, terrain-gripping tyres that keep contact without adding weight, so riders stay in control even when gravity gives them far less grip to work with”. New braking and steering systems will be needed for environments “where high speed is effortlessly achieved”, while frames will simultaneously need to be light enough for transport from Earth but sturdy enough to haul fully loaded cargo trailers.
If “making the untouchable touchable gives you all the feels”, another ad suggests that haptic hologram maker roles might appeal. “Using sound waves and metamaterials, you’ll bend light and sound into textures, tools and objects with genuine weight, resistance and presence without the need for a headset, handset or controller,” the description says.
Other future roles could include smart skin vanguard, building sensors and systems that ‘read’ a person’s skin in real time, and space power provider, designing grids for lunar settlements. While those exact jobs might not exist yet, the descriptions say, similar roles are already available.
“This year, humans travelled around the Moon for the first time in more than half a century, and it reminded us how quickly the impossible becomes real,” said Dr Rhys Morgan, senior principal consultant for skills at the Royal Academy.
“The engineers who will shape what we eat, what we wear and where we live in 2076, here on Earth and beyond, are starting school today, and most of those children have no idea engineering could be for them. What’s more, we need engineers now, with almost 200,000 extra people needed in exciting, creative, high-paying jobs in engineering over the next five years.”
Also published today, a Royal Academy survey of 101 fellows, research grant holders and prize winners finds them optimistic about the future of the profession. AI will make engineering skills more important, according to the experts, with 92% agreeing that systems thinking, problem solving and critical thinking will become even more valuable. Over three quarters (77%) expect AI to create a new generation of roles and specialisms that barely exist today, and only 26% think the profession will lose more jobs than it gains.
Looking ahead, respondents expect a “division of labour, not a replacement”. Two thirds (67%) think that most engineers will share tasks with AI after 2030, expecting roles to shift towards framing problems, checking what AI produces and taking responsibility for the decisions.
Asked to imagine engineering jobs 50 years from now, respondents’ suggestions included AI safety engineers, AI accountability engineers and AI forensic engineers, who would investigate why models go rogue or fail.
Sir John Lazar CBE, president of the Royal Academy, said: “Britain’s leading engineers are telling us that there is room for optimism in an age of AI. Many of them use AI in their own work and recruit engineers themselves, and they believe that engineering skills will become even more vital as we work alongside AI to improve the world around us.
“The engineers – and future fellows of our academy – who will shape life in 2076 are at school today, the first generation to grow up with AI. Inspiring them to see themselves creating that future starts now.”
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.