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6 ways to get involved with This Is Engineering Day

3 min
Mother and daughter at Amazon's Future Engineer event, learning how to code with mini robots on a personalised grid. There are coloured pens on the desk.
On Wednesday 6th November, Amazon is supporting This Is Engineering Day – an exciting annual campaign that brings engineering to life for young people around the country. Here’s how you can get involved.

This is Engineering Day is a campaign led by the Royal Academy of Engineering in collaboration with EngineeringUK that aims to show more young people what engineering really looks like – and why it can be a rewarding career path.
The day is an exciting example of industry, educators and government working hand-in-hand to ensure we’re challenging stereotypes and providing real-life examples of engineering in action.

Think you know engineering? Think again - This is Engineering

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That’s important because the UK faces a major shortfall in engineering skills. For example, new research commissioned by Amazon shows that the UK needs on average 21,000 more computer science graduates every year – or the economy could lose up to £33bn per year by 2030. In addition, EngineeringUK estimates the UK is short of 59,000 engineering graduates and technicians to fill core engineering roles each year.

At Amazon, we know that careers in engineering are incredibly varied and rewarding. We want to play our part by overhauling perceptions of what engineering looks like and attracting future engineers into the profession – no matter what their background is or their start in life.

That’s why we launched Amazon Future Engineer in the UK this year, a comprehensive childhood-to-career programme that aims to inspire, educate and enable children and young adults to try computer science. Amazon Future Engineer includes free robotics workshops and fulfilment centre tours for primary schools, teacher training and funding for secondary schools, plus bursaries and apprenticeships for post-18 education. The programme is set to reach more than one million children and young people across the UK over the next two years.

So if you’re keen to get involved with This Is Engineering Day, here are a few ideas.

PAGE OVERVIEW
Ask Alexa: “What does an engineer look like?”
  • TABLE OF CONTENTS
    Ask Alexa: “What does an engineer look like?”
  • Ask Alexa: “What does an engineer look like?”
  • Get involved with Amazon Future Engineer
  • Book your free Fulfilment Centre tour
  • Take an Hour of Code tutorial
  • Check out our curated engineering books list
  • Spread the word about This Is Engineering Day
On Wednesday 6th November, Amazon is supporting This Is Engineering Day – an exciting annual campaign that brings engineering to life for young people around the country. Here’s how you can get involved.

This is Engineering Day is a campaign led by the Royal Academy of Engineering in collaboration with EngineeringUK that aims to show more young people what engineering really looks like – and why it can be a rewarding career path.
The day is an exciting example of industry, educators and government working hand-in-hand to ensure we’re challenging stereotypes and providing real-life examples of engineering in action.

Think you know engineering? Think again - This is Engineering

This content is hosted by a third party (www.youtube.com).

To view the content, you need to consent to cookies by selecting Accept all in the popup banner. Or you can go to the site footer, select Cookie Preferences, and then select On under Functional Cookies, Performance Cookies and Advertising Cookies.

That’s important because the UK faces a major shortfall in engineering skills. For example, new research commissioned by Amazon shows that the UK needs on average 21,000 more computer science graduates every year – or the economy could lose up to £33bn per year by 2030. In addition, EngineeringUK estimates the UK is short of 59,000 engineering graduates and technicians to fill core engineering roles each year.

At Amazon, we know that careers in engineering are incredibly varied and rewarding. We want to play our part by overhauling perceptions of what engineering looks like and attracting future engineers into the profession – no matter what their background is or their start in life.

That’s why we launched Amazon Future Engineer in the UK this year, a comprehensive childhood-to-career programme that aims to inspire, educate and enable children and young adults to try computer science. Amazon Future Engineer includes free robotics workshops and fulfilment centre tours for primary schools, teacher training and funding for secondary schools, plus bursaries and apprenticeships for post-18 education. The programme is set to reach more than one million children and young people across the UK over the next two years.

So if you’re keen to get involved with This Is Engineering Day, here are a few ideas.

  • 1
    Ask Alexa: “What does an engineer look like?”

    Alexa users will now be able to find out more about engineering careers and This Is Engineering Day with a few simple utterances such as:

    “What does an engineer look like?”
    “When is This is Engineering Day?”
    “How can I get involved with This is Engineering?”
    “Tell me about This is Engineering Day.”

  • 2
    Get involved with Amazon Future Engineer

    Whether you’re a teacher, a young learner or a student in higher education, there are plenty of ways to take advantage of Amazon Future Engineer.

    For primary schools, free robotics workshops and fulfilment centre tours are available. In secondary schools, we’re working with Teach First to provide funding for specialist teacher training on careers and computer science. And in post-18 education, bursaries and apprenticeships are available around the UK.

    Visit the Amazon Future Engineer homepage to get started.

  • 3
    Book your free Fulfilment Centre tour

    See the magic that happens after you click ‘buy’ on Amazon.co.uk by touring one of our Fulfilment Centres and seeing first-hand how we deliver for our customers.

    Amazon Fulfilment is where our employees, technology and innovation come together every day to delight customers. Fulfilment Centre tours are available at eight locations in England and Scotland.

    Follow the link to find out more and to book for yourself or for groups of up to ten people.

  • 4
    Take an Hour of Code tutorial

    Hour of Code from Code.org is a global campaign supported by over 400 partners and 200,000 educators worldwide from the 9th-15th of December. The campaign reaches tens of millions of students in 180+ countries through a one-hour introduction to computer science and programming.

    As part of Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon has helped to create an interactive dance-themed online coding tutorial Hour of Code: Dance Party, featuring songs from leading artists. The online tutorial is expected to reach one million children in the UK by the end of 2021. And one hour of learning through Hour of Code is shown to have a positive impact on students, with a significant increase in the number of students saying they like computer science and perform better in computer science tasks.

    Get involved with Hour of Code: Dance Party today.

  • 5
    Check out our curated engineering books list

    In support of This Is Engineering, experts at The Royal Academy have curated a list of engineering-themed books to raise awareness of the breadth of engineering careers available to young people.

    Whether you’re looking for guidance on your own career, supporting a young person as they plan their career path or just looking for inspiration – this list will help to spark that passion.

    The list includes classic texts from Isaac Asimov and H.G. Wells, plus exciting new books from authors like Chris Hadfield and Satya Nadella.

    To find out more, visit our curated books list.

  • 6
    Spread the word about This Is Engineering Day

    There’s a whole host of ways for you to support This Is Engineering Day on 6th November.

    Discover what engineers and engineering really looks like by following @thisisengineering on Instagram.

    You can also check out their website to see how young engineers are shaping the modern world – from bath bombs to robotics, music and sustainable farming. Watch the stories to understand how those engineers built exciting careers around their interests.

    To help change the way engineers are represented, visit the This Is Engineering image library for a selection of free-to-use images that reflect the reality of engineering – it’s not just about white coats and hard hats!

Visit the This Is Engineering homepage to find out more.

  • PAGE OVERVIEW
  • 1
    Ask Alexa: “What does an engineer look like?”
  • 2
    Get involved with Amazon Future Engineer
  • 3
    Book your free Fulfilment Centre tour
  • 4
    Take an Hour of Code tutorial
  • 5
    Check out our curated engineering books list
  • 6
    Spread the word about This Is Engineering Day