Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase the numbers of people being trained in engineering at (1) apprentice level, (2) high technical level, and (3) graduate level.

The Government is making a series of interventions to increase the number of engineers. We are inspiring young people to consider engineering careers through the your-life campaign, tomorrow’s engineer’s week, STEM ambassadors in schools and improved careers advice.

We are committed to 3m apprenticeships starts this parliament and many of the new employer-led trailblazer apprenticeships standards are in the engineering and manufacturing sector.

Final data for the 13/14 academic year show that there were 64,800 apprenticeship starts in the engineering and manufacturing technologies sector subject area, an increase of 52% on 2009/10.

We have made additional funding available for HE within Higher Apprenticeships and for 20,000 more higher apprenticeship to provide apprentices with high level technical skills that employers need.

We have also established national colleges to address skills gaps in sectors key to the economy to provide high level technical skills –colleges announced so far include advanced manufacturing, high speed rail, nuclear, oil, gas and wind.

We have also made available £30m funding to employers to address skills shortages in engineering.

In HE we have provided £200 million capital investment for teaching facilities and £185 million for teaching of high cost subjects such as engineering. We have also provided £6m for the development of an engineering conversion pilot to enable qualified non-engineering graduates to pursue a career in engineering.