Sarah’s highly informative and entertaining lecture covered the state of Engineering in the UK, positioning control systems analysis and design, and the magic of control systems. Sarah’s presentation touched upon how engineering was perceived by society, by young people, parents and teachers and it included many interesting points including the fact that engineers have the happiest job in the world, closley followed by teachers and nurses (Guardian, April 2015) as well as the fact that engineers save more lives than doctors!
Sarah gave an impassioned plea for more engineers, for example, engineering companies are projected to need 1.82 million people with engineering skills from 2012-2022. Sarah also stressed the importance of recruiting women into the engineering profession since the UK has the lowest proportion of female engineering professionals across all EUI states with stats showing 8.7% of engineering professionals are female in the UK against 30% in some other EU states.
The complete schedule of EDA’s 50th anniversary lectures can be viewed here.