Engineering Careers

Iain McKenzie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nadine Dorries]

My hon. Friend makes his points very eloquently, as usual. I fully endorse the point that it would be fantastic if female role models went round schools to promote engineering as a career path for young women. He mentioned bigger companies such as EDF. One problem for Autotech in my constituency is that it does not have the budgets or the reach of so big an organisation as EDF. People in my constituency do not even know that Autotech is there; neither did I until recently. It does not have the advertising and marketing budget to reach out and sell itself to young people, whereas EDF is fortunate enough to be able to do the milk round and offer a global package. I want to focus on the problems faced by small companies that need to grow and are growing, and that are receiving orders that they cannot fulfil because they have not yet reached the dizzy heights of organisations such as EDF, with all the accompanying infrastructure and finance. Autotech is not quite there yet, although it has grown from 200 to 350 employees in a short space of time.

On top of the problems in education, students simply do not see engineering as attractive. They see media studies and many other courses as attractive. In preparation for the debate, I looked at the university courses for which the most people apply through UCAS, and engineering is way down the list.

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, to which I am listening with great interest. Does she agree that engineering suffers from an image that is out of date? The image that girls, in particular, have of engineering is being clad in a boiler suit and working with heavy vehicles, engines and oil. Those things would not attract a woman to the industry. We have to change that. Much as I am fascinated by the English education system, in Scotland we have taken an approach called the curriculum for excellence, which brings engineering into schools. It has certainly proven useful.

[Nadine Dorries]

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said, particularly the necessity of disabusing young women of the notion that engineering is about getting their nails dirty, or about carrying an old rag or wearing a boiler suit. Mechanical engineering has moved on from that, and it is now much more about electrical engineering. It is much more sophisticated and high tech. It is much more about the sort of thing that Autotech does, which, as I said, I cannot really explain in any great detail.

I put Autotech in touch with the Wootton Academy Trust in my constituency, which is currently applying to establish a science, technology, engineering and maths academy. As we touched on in the first half of the debate, it would be fantastic to see STEM academies and schools linking up with smaller businesses. As well as the big businesses that such schools will be attracted to because they provide sponsorship and—for want of a better word—the sexy image that goes with engineering, schools would do well to link with smaller businesses. The tendency will be for schools to work with bigger organisations.

Last summer’s Olympics, High Speed 2—although it is not popular with some Members—and Crossrail prove that we can do big engineering projects in this country. There will be a forward market for engineers, hopefully, if we can embrace engineering at the root, in schools and in small businesses. It is a feeding market, because if pupils train in small businesses, they might move up to bigger projects. There will always be a good living to be had in engineering, and there will always be good employers.

One thing that concerns me is that over the next decade, salaries across the world will level out as companies and countries compete with each other on a much more global stage. When young people choose a career and when they go to university or enter apprenticeships, they must keep their eye on what will employ them in the future and what will allow them to earn a living in the marketplace and progress as individuals. That is why organisations such as Autotech need help. We need to do what we can to incentivise schools. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is already working hard in the area, but I hope that the Minister will tell us what the coalition can do to help link schools and small businesses to make engineering a much more attractive option for young people. In particular, I want to know what the coalition can do to help businesses such as Autotech to reach out to young people and let young people know that they are out there and that they offer good career opportunities.