Emerging opportunities for graduate engineers

In only a few weeks’ time, this year’s graduates-to-be will have completed their finals and their thoughts will be turning to their vital first job. Some will already have offers; others will be redoubling their search. So how has the credit crunch and the recession affected prospects for engineering graduates?

One result is that a perceived drain of engineers to alternative careers in financial services in the City may have slowed.

Paul Jackson, chief executive of Engineering UK, said: ’In 2006 or 2007, before the big slump, only a shade more than three per cent went into financial services, the vast majority of engineering graduates, at least two-thirds, do go into a relevant occupation.’

A bigger issue at the moment is the fact that it’s taking many engineering graduates more than five years to find their first job, he added, but this should be kept in perspective. ’Graduates with degrees in broad subjects such as the humanities have a broader range of jobs to go into. A history graduate doesn’t generally expect to become a historian. But most people who take engineering degrees want to do a job in engineering.’