Synopsis
The structural engineering profession would benefit from the enhanced training of early-career professionals as well as becoming a more attractive industry to engineering graduates and young people. To achieve these objectives, links between academia and industry should be strengthened, through measures like expanding participation in Visiting Professor schemes and arranging joint research ventures. Proposed means of retaining more engineering graduates by attracting them to the profession, include creating a careers resource, as well as making undergraduate industrial experience compulsory for a degree to be accredited. To improve the training of engineers once they are in the industry, it is recommended that apprenticeships and part-time learning are promoted by employers and made accessible by course organisers. Structured graduate training schemes would also benefit the profession by demonstrating the availability of further learning opportunities.