Engineering Role Models - National Engineering Day 2024
13 November 2024 is National Engineering Day (formerly This is Engineering Day),
a day that aims to make the UK’s engineers and engineering more visible and celebrate
how they improve everyday lives and shape the world around us.
Who do you look up to? Who inspired you to be who you are today? Who should be an inspiration to the next generation of engineers?
These are some of the questions we’ll be discussing on National Engineering Day, 13 November 2024, in a bid to recruit a new, more diverse generation of engineers.
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Why does diversity matter? In a word, seatbelts.
The three-point car seatbelt has saved countless lives (>1m) since Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invented it for Volvo in 1959. Wearing a seat belt has been a legal requirement in the UK since 1983. But not one study has been conducted on how breast tissue affects seat belt placement. Or that the seatbelt hasn’t been redesigned to make it more comfortable for women.
The inclusion deficit is not limited just to seatbelts. Other examples include automatic soap dispensers that are unable to detect dark skin, cars that are less safe for women because they were tested using male crash test dummies, public transport systems and digital services that are not accessible for disabled people.
If we are to engineer a more inclusive, accessible-to-all future, it’s imperative that the engineering profession recruits from and draws on the experience and input from all sections of society.
Of today’s engineering workforce only 16% are women and 12.4% are black, Asian, minority ethnic. That statistic has to change if we are to engineer a more inclusive, accessible-to-all future. To meet that ambition, the engineering profession needs to recruit from and draw on the experience and input from all sections of society.
This is why for National Engineering Day 2024 we’ll be celebrating engineering role models by creating a series of statues of engineers whose stories and engineering achievements meet the criteria that makes someone an aspirational role model for the next, more diverse generation of engineers.
How many people who walk past the statues of engineering greats like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, George Stephenson or Joseph Bazalgette think engineering is for people other than those who’ve been immortalised in stone and bronze? How many white, black, and Asian women, members of the LGBTQ+ and disabled communities, for example, have observed these engineering greats and felt inspired to be like them?
People can’t be what they can’t see, so by publicly honouring and making visible inspiring engineers from different sections of society we hope to inspire and encourage the next generation into an engineering future.
Here’s how to get involved.
Shout out your engineering role models.
Who inspired you to be the engineer you are today?
Who inspires you today to be the engineer you want to be in the future?
On National Engineering Day we’d love you to post a video of yourself answering these questions and telling us why you’ve named these individuals in particular. Take a look at our example for inspiration.
Animated GIF Stickers
A series of animated GIFs available via GIPHY to be used on Instagram stories, TikTok, or other social media platforms.
Use the search bar inside the in app sticker/GIF library to search: ‘National Engineering Day’, ‘RAEng’ or ‘NED’
Browse the full collection our GIPHY account.
The This is Engineering image library
A free image library to demonstrate the diversity of the engineering profession. Specifically, the images will depict engineers (particularly those from underrepresented groups) at work – whether that’s in a lab, on a filmset, in the music studio, testing materials, playing with a robot or tinkering with bikes in a velodrome. Above all, these new images will challenge the stereotype, visually presenting engineers and engineering in a way that will surprise and delight the public.
