1. Experience led engineering education
Matthew Harrison, Director Education
The Royal Academy of engineering
IStructE Academics Conference National HE STEM Conference,
London
20th September 2012

2. Economic structure: international comparisons
The structure of the UK economic output in 2010 was (source: World Development Indicators 2012, World Bank):
<1% Agriculture , 22% industry / 11% manufacturing
77% Services (ONS analysis suggests 30% engineering-related)
US (1%, 20% / 13%, 79%)
France (2%, 19% / 11%, 79%)
Singapore (0%, 28% / 22%, 72%)
Germany (1%, 28% / 21%, 71%)
Brazil (6%, 27% / 16%, 67%)
Russia (4%, 37% / 16%, 59%)
Korea (3%, 39% / 31%, 58%)
China (10%, 47% / 30%, 43%)

3. Key messages Engineering matters to the UK economy
There is a shortage of engineers
Employers want more, better engineering graduates
Consensus over a lack of practical experience being a problem
Experience led education can provide this - but no one-size fits all solution
Various folks are doing various things (examples given)
Dissemination, networking and valuing excellence in engineering education is always needed

4. Acknowledgement: David Wilson, HEEG presentation, March 2012

5. Very smallest enterprises growing fastest but most SMEs do not employ anybody….. (Acknowledgement: David Wilson, HEEG presentation, March 2012)

6. Structural engineering

8. Overview of ‘engineering’ in UK economy
Taking 4 waves of 2009 LFS data there are 30 million workers in the UK economy. Based on a very detailed inspection of the first wave of 2011 LFS data there are
730,000 self-declaring ‘engineers’
700,000 Level 3+ self-declaring SET ‘technicians / associate professionals’ -90% of which are more ‘engineering & technology’ than ‘science’
880,000 skilled engineering operatives.
This make 2.3m skilled people in the engineering-related skills base – 8% of the workforce. There are 7m people working in the productive economy – 23%
Taking 4 waves of 2009 LFS and ONS data , GVA from engineering sectors is:
Manufacturing - £130bn
Utilities - £40bn
Construction - £90bn
Transport & storage - £60bn
Computing & Telecoms - £50bn (total £360bn – finance sector is £130 bn)
Total economy £1.3 trillion so the easily identified ‘engineering’ output is 30% of the total economy (2009 data). More could be identified.

9. What engineering employers want….
Skills surveys (CBI 2012) say employers of all kinds want good basic literacy & numeracy, STEM skills, employability skills and workplace experience.
Engineering skills surveys (IET 2012) suggest that a significant minority (39%) of employers think graduates don’t meet their expectations – with lack of practical experience being the most commonly cited problem (31% of employers polled)
Rising wage premium and employer survey evidence shows there is a shortage of engineers in the UK labour force
The Educating Engineers for the 21st Century reports (RAEng 2006, 2007) concluded that employers wanted ‘more, better engineers’.
The Engineering Graduates for Industry report (RAEng 2010) proposed ‘experience-led’ engineering education as the means to deliver the needs of industry.

10. Engineering graduates for Industry (2010)
Experience counts, relevance motivates, one size does not fit all….
Exemplar experience-led activities:
Activity led learning (Coventry)
Active learning (Liverpool)
EnVison (Imperial College)
Industrial placements (Aston),
Industrial projects & Industry sponsored degree programmes (Loughborough)
Visiting Professors scheme (RAEng)

11. The characteristics of engineering higher education
(1) Engineering is pervasive in the Higher Education sector:
Provision at circa 100 HEIs in England and Wales: around 6% of HE provision overall (STEM is circa 23% - include medicine and related and all other ‘sciences’ and this rises to circa 42%. HESA )
Growing Level 4+ engineering provision in FE Colleges
Growing activity in alternative modes of engineering provision (for example Higher Apprenticeships and other work-based routes)
16,000 engineering academic staff in England alone (HESA, )
(2) The landscape for Higher Education has shifted (again) since 2010 introducing new drivers on teaching quality, employment outcomes, widening access, recruiting and retaining students.
Therefore, every engineering department must position itself in a new market for students according to its strengths and constraints

12. Source: Enhancing Engineering Higher Education
Source: Enhancing Engineering Higher Education. Contains an overview of the engineering outputs of the programme and synopses of 26 projects written by an editorial team.
58 full case studies written by project teams are referenced.
Available as a free download from
Full set of case studies available from
Supporting documentation available from

13. And a last thought…..
There is considerable innovation underway in engineering education and it is distributed throughout the HE sector. It needs to be evaluated over the longer term to assess what is most effective.
What is found to work should be shared widely.
Building collaborations and maintaining networks seems a key objective in the medium term to ensure that dissemination does happen.
But effective dissemination does not always lead to adoption of effective practice. Institutional support for excellent teaching and learning must be an enduring priority for the engineering community if we are to increase the rate and sustainability of positive change.