Attractiveness Of Engineering: Can Supply Meet Demand in UK Undergraduate Higher Education

Research Paper Recommended citation: Fowler, S., Rich, J., & Mitchell, J. (2025). Attractiveness Of Engineering: Can Supply Meet Demand in UK Undergraduate Higher Education. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631559. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. ATTRACTIVENESS OF ENGINEERING: CAN SUPPLY MEET DEMAND IN UK UNDERGRADUATE HIGHER EDUCATION S Fowler a, 1 , J Rich b, J Mitchell c a Engineering Professors’ Council, London, England, 0009-0007-5319-6931 b Engineering Professors’ Council, London, England, 0009-0005-4462-2666 c University College London, London, England, 0000-0002-0710-5580 Conference Key Areas: The attractiveness of Engineering; (Sustainability and society in engineering; Continuing education and life-long learning in engineering) Keywords: Attractiveness Admissions Demand Supply Financial-sustainability ABSTRACT This paper investigates undergraduate engineering admissions in the UK, focusing on supply and demand dynamics within the sector. Interest in UK undergraduate engineering education appears to be gaining momentum. Despite rising applications, engineering admissions have remained static as universities are actively limiting student intake. Assessing the ability of higher education institutions to meet this demand is crucial, particularly in light of financial instability across universities. Traditionally, research into the attractiveness of engineering education has centred on increasing student interest and participation. However, university and applicant behaviours are changing. Using secondary quantitative analysis of five years of UCAS data, this paper highlights increasing rejection rates, a growing trend of applicants ignoring or declining offers, and a shift in accepted qualifications. These changes will have tangible impacts on the size and shape of engineering higher education. Financial constraints and institutional strategies are now shaping admissions trends more than applicant demand and we need to turn our attention to the sector’s 1 Corresponding Author Initials Last name e-mail address. capacity to accommodate rising demand. This is important, as who we admit impacts everything we do thereafter. 1 INTRODUCTION Studies into the attractiveness of engineering education to potential stakeholders tend to present a deficit model, on the assumption that more engineering graduates are needed to address skills shortages and meet the needs of global challenges (Boles & Whelan, 2016, Katis et al 2018). Within the literature, the objective is witnessed as the promotion of engineering education – through initiatives such as targeted marketing (Hawash, 2007), improved engineering curricula and digital access (Mielikäinen, 2021), breadth of study (Alpay, 2012), and access for women (García-Peñalvo, 2022). Across Europe there have been initiatives to grow the engineering workforce, including the Engineering Synergy Group of the Tuning Project (Maffioli and Augusti 2003), the Lisbon Agenda, Europe 2020 strategy [Schumann et. Al 2010) and articulated recently by Engineers Europe (2024). However, little consideration has been given to the capacity of engineering education for growth or its ability to meet increasing demand. With an increase of 14% in applications to study undergraduate engineering in the UK for 2025 (UCAS, 2025) we are at an important juncture to test the health of UK higher education when it comes to meeting the demand for undergraduate engineering. The financial outlook for most of UK higher education is bleak. Official data shows over a third of UK providers were running a deficit for 2023-24 (HESA, 2024, Office for Students, 2024) with reports of up to three-quarters of universities at risk of running deficits in 2025 (Jeffreys & Standley, 2024). At least seventy institutions are making significant staff cuts. (Kernohan, 2024) Meanwhile, there is deep concern in the sector about the affordability of engineering amid the increasing financial pressure on providers. In the UK, engineering attracts a high-cost funding element in addition to fee income, but together these do not cover teaching costs with an estimated shortfall of £7.5 thousand per student per year (Engineering Professors’ Council, 2024). The consequence has long been systematic provider subsidy of engineering tuition from classroom-based subjects, international recruitment and research activities. This model is unsustainable in the current financial and political climate, and a closer look at UK undergraduate engineering supply and demand is critical to the future of the sector. 2 METHODOLOGY 2.1 Engineering admissions The research is based on secondary quantitative analysis of UCAS applications and admissions datasets from 2019 to 2023. Bespoke data was derived using the UCAS Exact service to specify unique data combinations to understand the Engineering market and what the full landscape looks like in practice. An initial investigation into the possibilities of the data available was undertaken to construct research questions, and to define the data required to answer them. This was a complex process and demanded extensive consolidation of experience and discussion. The range of populations used in the data determined the precise implementation of analysis against each dataset (where there were some limitations). To maximise the use value of the datasets, several advanced user-defined variables were also secured, including subject groupings as well as refinement of standard variables and the introduction of qualification and subject combinations. Finally, the statistics upon which to report were chosen from a further menu of options. For most datasets, the project included variables spanning the whole application process. Unless specified, all datasets were based on the UCAS Undergraduate Scheme End of Cycle point with a start year of 2019 and an end year of 2023. Over one thousand data files were considered to enable both multivariate analysis and precise analysis by each combination of variables within each set. The data is rounded at source to comply with data protection legislation 2.2 Research questions • What is the application, offer and acceptance pattern of applicants to undergraduate engineering? • What attainment is required in practice for entry to undergraduate engineering (as opposed to published entry requirements)? • Where are the leaks in the process and how have these changed? 3 RESULTS 3.1 Figures In 2023, over 56,000 hopefuls each made an average of three or more separate applications to undergraduate Engineering (of a maximum of five choices). That’s a 17% increase in people applying to study engineering and a 10% increase in applications (choices) to individual Engineering courses since 2019. However, UK admissions to undergraduate Engineering have been broadly static over these five years. Despite heightened student interest, the volume ultimately accepted to UK undergraduate Engineering remains constant. (Figure 1.) There are no student number controls on university places in England and Wales. In 2023/24, 85.6% of UK engineering students studied in England and Wales. Scotland (11.9%) and Northern Ireland (2.5%) do have a capped number of places for UK and EU students. Fig. 1. Engineering applications, applicants and accepts, 2019 to 2023 By the end of the 2023 UK undergraduate admissions cycle just over half of engineering applicants had been accepted to Engineering,1.3% fewer than in 2019. Admissions are increasingly concentrated in a smaller number of providers, differentiated by tariff (attainment). The volume of provider course offers to applicants has increased since 2019, but only by around 4%, while the number of applicants rejected in the main scheme has increased much more sharply; by 29% in-cycle to 2023 and, by the end of the admissions cycle as post-results movement settles, by 20%. This means that demand pressure is being actively mitigated supply-side, where UK universities are choosing not to accept as many engineering students as they might. The volume of applicants declining an engineering offer has increased by 10% since 2019. Furthermore, the number of engineering offers ignored by applicants has increased by 60% over five years, resulting in later provider understanding of their likely cohort. In 2023, just one in four provider offers onto engineering courses were firmly accepted by applicants and this pathway accounted for 75% of those placed on undergraduate engineering courses (with the remaining accounted for by those opting for a reserve choice). One in three applicants with an interest in Engineering at application stage who entered higher education deferred to another subject in 2023 and, for most, the other subject was confirmed early in the applications process. The scale of these could-be engineers who go on to study another subject has grown from one in four in 2019. In the past five years, over 55,000 Engineering applicants have gone on to study another subject. These potential engineers are increasingly deferring to Computing (10.3% of accepted applicants who had applied to Engineering in 2023); Architecture, Building and Planning (4.2%); Sport and Exercise Sciences (2.9%); and Creative arts and design courses (2.3%). Despite offer-making in women’s favour, women were more inclined than men to end up studying a non-engineering subject; one in two did not go on to undergraduate engineering (up from one in three in 2019). The research shows that three quarters of 18-year-olds accepted to undergraduate engineering held A levels in 2023. A levels are completed over two years and students usually study three subjects, but can study fewer (or, sometimes, four). In this report, only the highest 3 grades are considered (derived from the UCAS application), where A*A*A* is the maximum achievement. Nearly one in ten accepted applicants with 3 A levels or higher presented with A*A*A*; more than one in three held straight As or higher; and more than half were high achievers (ABB+). In undergraduate engineering, just one in five overall held one or more D grade. The grade profiles of those accepted to UK undergraduate Engineering are on a downwards trajectory. Between 2019 and 2021, the number and proportion of both high achievers and those achieving the highest grades increased. They have since decreased year-on-year. (Figure 2). Fig. 2. Engineering acceptances by A level attainment, 2019 to 2023 The increase in applications to Engineering being driven by 18-year-olds (+18% since 2019) and the predominance of the 18-year-old A level cohort who, in 2023, were more successful to acceptance than five years ago, appears to have contracted the undergraduate Engineering market for other qualifications. The BTEC Extended Diploma acceptance route, in particular, has contracted by nearly a third since 2019; a decline most pronounced following the 2021 Government announcement that public funding would be removed from “low-quality” level 3 courses that overlap with A levels and T Levels. BTEC applicants are increasingly placed in Clearing. BME applicants and those with disabilities are overrepresented in BTEC Extended Diploma admissions cohorts. In 2023, over half of Engineering applications were made to high-tariff providers, with over a quarter made to medium-tariff and a fifth to low-tariff providers. High achievers (with 3 A levels) dominated the acceptances to higher-tariff providers; nonhigh achievers (with 3 A levels) were the modal acceptance cohort among medium- tariff providers; and those where no A levels were achieved were the most common acceptances at the lower-tariff providers. (Figure 3.) Fig. 3. Engineering acceptances by achievement and provider tariff, 2023 Meanwhile, the gap between highand non-high-achieving A level Engineering recruits closing at high-tariff providers and increasing at mediumand low-tariff providers. (Figure 4.) Fig. 4. Engineering acceptances by achievement and provider group, 2023 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 1. Higher tariff group 2. Medium tariff group 3. Lower tariff group Engineering, acceptances by achievement & provider tariff 2023 No A level achieved Non-high achievers High achievers 2 A levels 1 A level The number of Engineering applications from those aged 20+ has fallen by 9% since 2019, with just 13% of applications to Engineering in 2023 from those aged 20 or over. (Figure 5.) Fig. 5. Engineering, applications by age, 2023 4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Although engineering applications have increased substantially since 2019, UK admissions to undergraduate Engineering have been broadly static over these five years; demand appears to be outstripping supply, with providers rejecting more applications. Pressure on places is being actively mitigated supply-side, where UK universities are choosing not to accept as many engineering students as they might. Meanwhile, applicant behaviour is changing. Fewer engineering applications per capita suggests that interest in engineering may be increasingly speculative at the outset. The increase in applicants declining or ignoring an engineering has a consequential effect on provider planning for laboratory spaces, facilities, licensing costs, as well as staffing. In 2023, just one in four provider offers onto engineering courses were firmly accepted by applicants (and this pathway accounted for 75% of those placed on undergraduate engineering courses). In the past five years, over 55,000 Engineering applicants have gone on to study another subject. Despite offer-making in women’s favour, women were increasingly more inclined than men to end up studying a nonengineering subject. If efforts make engineering more attractive is attracting, but not converting certain cohorts, this may be a reflection of the sectors ability to adapt and the levels of resilience to external pressures. Success metrics, for example, drive provider behaviours as they compete among themselves for applicants. Office for Students (2004) indicate that continuation for full-time first-degree students in engineering (combined with technology and computing) has destabilised since 2019 and a gap has emerged with engineering