In the driving seat: automotive career guide for graduate engineers

Of all the engineering-oriented sectors, automotive is probably facing the biggest technological upheavals. New production techniques, materials and designs are accompanying a shift away from the internal combustion engines which have propelled road vehicles for most of the hundred or so years they have existed. Instead we’re moving towards systems based around electric motors and batteries, or a variety of combinations of both technologies in hybrid vehicles.

Many people think the British automotive industry has been in a state of decline from a peak in the 1960s. But while there are no major British-owned carmakers left, the industry is in fact in very good shape. Companies such as Nissan and Honda set up shop in the UK; iconic marques such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley, now in the hands of German giants BMW and Volkswagen respectively (BMW also owns the wildly-successful relaunched Mini, which is made in Oxford), are still designed and built in the UK; and India’s Tata has reinvigorated Jaguar and Land Rover, with new models and expansion into fresh markets leading to expansion of its factories in Coventry and Liverpool. In fact, Britain now makes — and exports — more cars now than it has at any time.