A guide to graduate careers in engineering

According to a report by Engineering UK, the country will need 265,000 skilled entrants into engineering through to 2024. That’s an annual shortfall of at least 20,000 people. The good news is, therefore, that as an engineering graduate you are well sought after, have great career prospects, and a wide variety of options in terms of career prospects in engineering.

 

Engineering recruitment agencies are a great place to start when you are looking for career options in the world of engineering, helping you find the jobs which best suit you, and which offer competitive pay rates across all areas of the industry.

 

Engineering – or creative science – as some people like to call it, is a genre that stretches across almost every industry that exists. We will always need innovative and forward-thinking people who can push the boundaries and bring new concepts and ideas to fruition.

 

With a degree in engineering, there are limitless potential careers available to you – depending on your particular interests. Some of the genres available to you include:

Save the Student suggests that the average salary for an engineering graduate is about £25,000 – or higher for chemical engineering and civil engineering graduates – which is significantly higher than the national graduate average of £23,000.

 

Some of the jobs that you might want to consider as an engineering graduate include:

 

A mechanical engineer is concerned with the design and development of machines and engines. From car engines to high fidelity sound reproduction, mechanical engineering covers a wide range of industries, helping to develop, create, and maintain any sort of mechanical system. As the world becomes more mechanised, there is an increasing demand for skilled mechanical engineers.

 

The main role of a marine engineer is to develop and maintain the machinery that is involved in moving water vessels around. For some people this might mean spending time at sea, helping to maintain the machinery of cruise liners, for example. For others, there might be more land-based work.

 

As we are becoming increasingly conscious about the impact of the human race on the planet, there is an increased need for the environmental engineers who can analyse, develop, and maintain machinery and processes which can help us to reduce climate change and lower our carbon footprints. This could be through discovering eco-friendly solutions to the problems we have, such as making renewable energy sources more effective or developing products that are better for the environment, like solar panels and wind turbines. 

 

As the world becomes increasingly reliant on electricity, the role of an electrical engineer is becoming more and more important. An electrical engineer is usually responsible for designing electrical systems and the parts that are needed for them to function properly. 

 

Civil engineers are responsible for ensuring that our towns and cities work properly. Whether this is by planning the roads, planning for natural disasters, or making sure that the water system is as it should be, the role of the civil engineer is vitally important to the smooth running of any town or city. In a country where the population size is expanding at unprecedented rates, it is essential that there are enough civil engineers to keep our towns and cities running properly.

 

Software engineers work on a slightly different level to many of the other types of engineers. They work with computers and software to design, test, develop, and maintain the technology that keeps the world turning. This might be computers themselves or software, apps, and websites that need to be continually developed.

 

Biomedical engineers work closely with the health profession to develop and maintain solutions that can help to improve the treatment of patients. Scan machines such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and microscopic surgical machines now both exist thanks to biomedical engineers. This is an emerging field in the world of engineering but one that is enormously important to our lives.

 

In a world where technological and mechanical developments are moving at great speed, there has never been a better time to carve out a career in engineering. The skills that an engineering degree can teach you can be transferred across many different industries, giving you the opportunity to take any path that interests you.