5 November 2025. The Royal Academy of Engineering has published the results of Engineers 2030, a National Engineering Policy Centre project to establish the skills needs of the UK engineering workforce in the 21st century.
Engineers 2030: The final report, published on National Engineering Day, challenges conventional perceptions of engineering, explores how engineering knowledge, skills, and behaviours are evolving and how the engineering workforce must adapt to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The report also makes recommendations for how the different phases of education and training support must change to meet future needs.
There is a chronic and growing shortfall in the UK’s engineering skills capacity. Labour market projections from Skills England suggest that engineering occupations will experience one of the highest rates of employment growth by 2030, outpacing non-priority sectors by a factor of 1.6. Expected growth in jobs in clean energy, defence, digital and housebuilding over the next 5 years, amount to 834,000 additional jobs. For these sectors alone the expected workforce size in 2030 is 5.3 million. One in four job adverts in the UK now relate to engineering, underscoring the sector’s systemic and sustained demand.
The problem is not just the number of engineers and technicians needed. The UK does not currently have a skills system in place to develop a workforce with the capabilities, values and support required to succeed in their roles. For example, new data shows that although 74% of engineering employers say advanced digital skills will be critical over the next three years, only 39% are currently prioritising these for training.
The report identifies three vital characteristics of a skills system that is fit for purpose:
1. Future focused. Education and training must begin with a broad and ambitious re-definition of what it is to be an engineer and technician for the 21st century, ready to respond to future technological development and societal and environmental need.
2. Guided by a systems approach. The UK urgently needs a coherent, spatial-temporal approach to aligning skills development with national needs.
3. Accessible to all, at every point. Careers and learning are a lifelong journey, so we need an ambitious, flexible, person-centred education and skills system, easy for companies and individuals to engage with, as part of a profession that is permeable and a home for all communities.
There are ten practical recommendations to achieve a skills system with these qualities, designed to catalyse change rather than prescribe every detail. Among the recommendations are:
· Those responsible for engineering and technical education in further and higher education should develop dynamic curricula that combine breadth, depth and cross-cutting capability reflecting the Engineers 2030 vision and the principles of being resilient and future-facing; socially responsible and inclusive; data and digitally fluent; commercially and economically literate; trusted by the public; and capable of understanding uncertainty, and working collaboratively.
· Training and skills acquisition by a practising engineer or technician should be recast into flexible and responsive modules, fundable through the Growth and Skills Levy, which can be stacked into a qualification or skills passport.
· Employers should consider themselves a fundamental part of the skills system, both by supporting formal education and by providing excellent ongoing learning in the workplace.
· Government must reduce barriers to and complexity for employers providing employees with the development they need, especially SMEs and microbusinesses.
· Government must also develop a holistic, long-term plan for all engineering skills across all education stages, addressing growth across all sectors. This should align its industrial and education policies, with particular attention given to the cost of delivering the practical and laboratory-based subjects that underpin its Industrial Strategy ambitions, and their financial sustainability at school, FE and higher education level.
The Academy is launching a new national engineering and technology Skills Centre to support these aims. It will provide learning resources and materials to colleges and universities, and direct training and upskilling support to engineers and technicians in industry.
Engineers 2030, led by the Academy over 18 months, gathered evidence from ideation workshops, national and regional roundtables, literature reviews, and policy research and analysis. The final report incorporates insights from employers, educators, and engineers and technicians themselves, and is informed by recent research into UK education and skills programmes, its communities and the upskilling priorities of the engineering industry.
At a breakfast event in Parliament to celebrate National Engineering Day, Professor Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FREng FRS, Chair of Engineers 2030, will say:
“This final report of the Engineers 2030 project sets out a bold and necessary vision for the future of engineering and the engineering workforce in the UK."
“The perilous skills gap and diversity challenge faced by engineering in the UK is decades old and will never be adequately addressed by the current education and skills system. Complex and evolving skills challenges mean employers cannot recruit individuals with the right mix of skills, particularly in. areas critical to UK strategic priorities, like digital transformation, the transition to net zero, and infrastructure renewal."
“The UK must invest in a future-facing education and skills system that supports lifelong learning, enables flexible career pathways, and embeds inclusive cultures across education and employment. Only then will it be equipped with a workforce of engineers and technicians who are trusted by the public and able to respond adequately to national and regional needs and to solve the challenges facing society such as climate change, sustainability, and social equity."
“Engineers 2030 is not the end of a conversation; it is the beginning of necessary and overdue change. Acting on its recommendations will require coordinated action across government, industry, education providers, and engineers themselves. The government’s recent Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper and Clean Energy Jobs Plan include welcome new changes that will help, and the Academy is embarking on its own major new initiative—a Skills Centre to provide a focal point for multi-sector collaboration at scale to address this gap."
“We invite all stakeholders to act with urgency and ambition, to grow an engineering workforce that is resilient, reflects the values and diversity of the society it serves, and is able to drive innovation, prosperity, and sustainability for generations to come.”
Notes for editors
1. The UK’s overall science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce of 12.7 million people represents a significant component of the country’s 32.7 million strong labour force. As a sector it has seen rapid growth at over 22% since 2013, far outpacing that of other sectors in the economy. Engineering is a foundational pillar of the UK economy, with over 6.4 million people employed in engineering-related roles, nearly one fifth of the total workforce. Of these, around 4.2 million work in core engineering occupations, while a further 2.2 million contribute through adjacent roles in architecture, construction and technical services.
2. The National Engineering Policy Centre brings engineering thinking to the heart of policymaking, creating positive impacts for society. We are a partnership of 42 professional engineering organisations that cover the breadth and depth of our profession, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Together we provide insights, advice, and practical policy recommendations on complex national and global challenges.
3. National Engineering Day aims to make engineering and the UK’s engineers more visible by celebrating how they improve everyday lives and shape the world around us.
In 2025 National Engineering Day will be celebrating the impact of engineers today, and predicting what technologies engineers could be working on and what roles they could play in society in 2050 and beyond. The Royal Academy of Engineering has launched the AI–Z of Engineering: an inspiring digital map of over 200 current and predicted roles showing how engineers are shaping today’s – and tomorrow’s - world of tech, film, fashion and sustainability.
4. The Royal Academy of Engineering creates and leads a community of outstanding experts and innovators to engineer better lives. As a charity and a Fellowship, we deliver public benefit from excellence in engineering and technology and convene leading businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics across engineering and technology. As a National Academy, we provide leadership for engineering and technology, and independent, expert advice to policymakers in the UK and beyond.
The Royal Academy of Engineering Skills Centre is a transformational new partnership led by the Academy to catalyse and scale sustainable solutions to chronic and growing shortfalls in the UK’s engineering skills capacity. Its place-based approach will help build a UK engineering skills base fit for the future.