Today, 2^nd November 2022, is National Engineering Day, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering with the aim of making the UK’s engineers and engineering more visible and celebrating how they improve everyday lives and shape the world around us.

There are currently over 8.1 million people employed in engineering jobs across the UK, which is just over a quarter (26%) of the adult working population. Contributing to that head count, Eadon employs 28 engineers and are continuing to recruit as we expand and grow.  As an innovative design consultancy working on projects within industries from civil engineering to nuclear decommissioning technology, we recruit from within our local communities in and around Sheffield but work internationally. For the majority of projects we’re involved in, our work is collaborative, creating partnerships with architects, materials specialists, construction teams and software engineers. We work with our partners to improve lives in a wide variety of ways; through  our work on nuclear waste storage we are dealing with decades worth of nuclear waste that must be stored safely for future generations; we help to prevent catastrophic flooding through novel designs in flood barriers and defences; and we also work on projects that combine practicality with beauty, ensuring that the world around us not only supports our daily needs but also provides our communities with elegant and stylish architectural solutions that are a pleasure to live and work alongside and encourage active travel.

Over the next 30 years, the demand for engineers is expected to grow significantly as a result of increasingly complex and urgent global challenges and rapid technological developments. Some of the factors intensifying the race to recruit more engineers include: the need to achieve net zero by 2050 and a 78% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035; the demand for future pandemic preparedness as well as the search for solutions to ease energy and food crises; and the drive to fulfil the technical requirements that our rapidly growing digital tech industry is creating.

In response, the Royal Academy of Engineering, through its This Is Engineering campaign, has been actively encouraging more young people to choose engineering as a career. Since its launch in 2018, the campaign’s short films featuring a diverse range of young engineers and engineering roles, have prompted more than one million young people to consider engineering as a career. National Engineering Day is part of that campaign.

Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Academy of Engineering, comments: “Last year, TechUK estimated that by 2025, just three years from now, there would be three million new UK technology jobs, and EngineeringUK’s Net Zero Workforce report published earlier this year found that 90,000 new jobs are expected to be created in wind power alone by 2030. Recruiting a new generation of engineers has never been so critical.

“Research tells us that the younger generation is looking for careers that positively impact other people’s lives but is labouring under misperceptions of engineering as mechanical, too technical, and dull. Our map shows how important engineering is economically, but we also have engineers to thank for making our world better, whether that’s through a device that helps deaf people feel music, bioplastics, or clean energy. National Engineering Day gives us focal point around which to rally the engineering profession, including companies like Eadon, to show the next generation a different image of who engineers are and what they do. The future of our profession and our capability as a society in changing our world for the better depends on it.”

Whether you are just starting out in your engineering career or have years of experience under your belt, we are always looking for creative, ambitious engineers to join our team. To find out more, visit our careers page.

To see how engineering is improving lives and meet the engineers making lives better go to: thisisengineering.org.uk, @thisisengineering on Instagram and @thisiseng on Twitter