Outreach professionals will find it easier to inspire more young people from diverse backgrounds to consider engineering as a future career with the launch of two new resources on the website www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk, which has been developed by EngineeringUK and brings together free advice and guidance, ‘curated from across the engineering community, to support practitioners in providing young people with engineering careers inspiration’.

‘Engineering your future’ is a new presentation designed to inspire 14- to 19-year-olds to consider a career in engineering. Developed by the ‘Tomorrow’s Engineers’ careers working group, it explores engineering sectors that are expected to flourish in the future — from big data and life sciences to agricultural technologies and low-carbon economy — and profiles different engineers, skills required and routes into engineering.

The Tomorrow’s Engineers careers working group comprises education, outreach, careers, and marketing specialists from the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Academy of Engineering, UCL Engineering — and a secondary school teacher.

This presentation can be used by anyone wanting to inspire and inform young people about a career in engineering, such as STEM ambassadors, teachers, and careers advisers; it can also be adapted to suit the needs of the presenter and audience. There is also a new resource called the ‘measures bank’; this is an interactive tool designed to help researchers evaluate and ultimately improve their organisation’s outreach programme.

Research officer Jess Di Simone said: “Embedding evaluation in your STEM outreach can be a powerful way to improve how future outreach programmes are delivered. There are over 250 example questions in the ‘measures bank’ repository, which companies can use as a springboard to assess the success of their programmes.

“Meanwhile, the ‘measures bank’ helps practitioners to collect evidence towards improving their STEM outreach and contribute towards our understanding of what works in different contexts and for young people of different genders, abilities, ethnicities, or socio-economic backgrounds.”