The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is investing £2 million in the UK’s up and coming engineering talent. The Diamond Jubilee Scholarships have been awarded to 540 of the UK’s top students from 382 schools starting an engineering degree at 27 UK based universities this autumn.
This contribution to students is further evidence of the IET’s on-going commitment to minimising the skills gap by encouraging the brightest and best students to study IET accredited courses, which will put them on a path that is not only challenging and rewarding, but is also vital to the UK economy.
Professor Andy Hopper, President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology comments: “With demand for more than two million engineers over the next few decades, it has never been more important to encourage young people to study engineering so that they are able to follow rewarding careers and, ultimately, protect the UK’s economic prosperity.
“This is the first year we’ve run this programme and we really hope that as more people hear about the scholarship, more will be encouraged to think about studying engineering. Engineering is a varied, exciting and interesting career choice.”
The IET Diamond Jubilee Scholarship programme was open to all UK students who achieved 3 ‘A’s at A Level, 3 ‘A’ grade Advanced Highers, 5 ‘A’ grade Highers or an International Baccalaureate Diploma at 36 points or above and who have been accepted to join an IET accredited engineering or technology degree course this year. Qualifying for the Scholarship entitles those that applied and met the criteria to £1,000 per year during their studies, up to a maximum of £3000 for Bachelors students and £4000 for MEng students.
The IET received 1,144 applications of which 540 were successful in meeting the criteria. Interestingly, 19% of the successful applicants were female which is an excellent result considering only 7% of the UKs engineering workforce is female. The 2013 winners are the first cohort who, it is hoped, will go on to become mentors to the 2014 Diamond Scholars as this will be an annual award.