The world's most advanced companies are busy creating our future, but they are entirely reliant on highly skilled minds to get us there. To continue this advancement - and to compete in the global race to commercialise and export valuable intellectual property - we need to address the engineering shortage which is threatening science, technology and engineering.
Britain has historically shown itself to be woefully ill-equipped to train engineers: particularly in the STEM subjects which will be so critical to our economy post-Brexit. In engineering alone, there is a 69,000 shortfall entering the engineering profession every year, compelling inventive companies to choose between researching and developing technologies in this country, or, as they are forced to do, go elsewhere to find the talent so badly needed.
Education needs to change: our esteemed institutions are churning out many graduates with impractical degrees; 65 per cent of children entering primary school today will end up working in roles that don't yet exist. Yet education is increasingly an expensive choice with uncertain outcomes. Understandably, students are beginning to question the value of education, particularly when they have to pay fees of £9,250 per year for as little as four hours of teaching time a week.
Fortunately, change is coming. Former universities minister Jo Johnson spotted the problem, and understood that it is companies that are experimenting, investing and developing to create the next generation of artificial intelligence, robotics, connected products and integrated hardware and software. The new Higher Education and Research Act means the companies and engineers that are investing in and developing the future are now in a position to educate the next generation, inspiring them for the new world we are creating. At Dyson, we are seizing this opportunity with both hands.
The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology opened its doors in September 2017. I have employed 33 of the brightest young minds in this country to work and study full-time at Dyson. These bright and ambitious undergraduate engineers will work towards a Russell-Group engineering degree and gain real-world experience working on live projects. All while being mentored by living, breathing, world-leading engineers. They will earn a good salary and graduate free from debt. A thoroughly re-engineered learning experience.
Dyson has filed almost 9,000 patents to date, more than any UK university technology transfer office, so it doesn't take an academic to realise that this inventiveness could be put to good use inspiring and educating future prolific patent filers. These capable young engineers will be developing new technology alongside world-leading engineering practitioners, creating real products that end up in real homes - doing their academic work alongside their engineering projects.
And we already know that a new approach to engineering education can attract a new kind of engineer: one third of our first intake are women, in an industry where only nine per cent of UK engineers are female, and we hope this balance will improve further. The Dyson School at Imperial College London, where we helped shape the curriculum, has in 2017 accepted more women than men. These are bright, inventive students, raring to go. One student has built a moving, responsive flight simulator at her school, another already runs his own business designing and manufacturing camping equipment.
By cultivating the seeds of curiosity and creativity now, we are investing in a future full of potential. And, I believe, these ripples in higher education will create a wave of far more exciting progress. Dyson will have the bright, nimble minds to create better engineers and the capability to design better products. The undergraduates will have the opportunity to learn by doing, to find their own solutions, much as I did when I was mentored by the late inventor and founder of Rotork, Jeremy Fry. He inspired me to begin this lifetime of engineering: I hope now to set others along the same rewarding path.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
