Transforming Futures Of Young People

Young people now face unprecedented challenges, including financial worries, employment and climate concerns - with implications for a new generation’s mental health, and the health of the UK economy.  

In this Foundation & Friends podcast, host and Executive Director, Corporate Affairs & Foundation, City & Guilds, Faiza Khan MBE, is joined by Thora Eberts, Director of Network Delivery, UK Youth, and Maddie Dinwoodie, Director of Engagement Programmes, EngineeringUK, for a wide ranging discussion on how government, communities and employers can support young talent and help young people to overcome education, skills and development challenges, including:

• How young people can influence policy change through advocacy efforts 
• The return on investment for spending on youth work 
• The role of employers in supporting the early-stage workforce 
• How young people can help to meet the current skills gap in UK engineering 
• How community-based engineering projects can positively impact youth at local level 
• How educators can signpost young people to a career in engineering

For further information about the material quoted in this episode visit:

• #Untapped: The economic value of youth work - UK Youth
• Partner with us - UK Youth
• #iwill
• The #iwillmovement celebrates a decade of social action during #iwill Week 2023 - UK Youth
• Hatch
• The Power of Youth Charter
• Youth provision and life outcomes research - DCMS
• Net Zero Workforce -  Policy asks for the next government - EngineeringUK
• Policy asks for the new government - EngineeringUK
• The science education tracker 2023 - EngineeringUK
• Engineering and Technology: Key to the future

For more episodes from the series click here.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 3:52 Bridging the Divide: Addressing Youth Disengagement
• 8:05 Empowering Youth: Advocacy in the Age of Social Awareness
• 12:37 Navigating Employability: Challenges and Strategies
• 16:34 Fostering Change: Collaborating for Youth Empowerment
• 22:05 Bridging the Gender Gap in Engineering: Addressing Bias and Inspiring Diversity
• 25:25 Engineering for Community Impact: Inspiring Local Solutions
• 29:11 Addressing Industry Trends & Innovations
• 31:33 Guiding the Future: Educators' Role in Promoting Engineering Careers for All
• 34:21 Overcoming Obstacles: Advice for Aspiring Young Engineers
• 35:53 Collective Impact: Collaborative Solutions for Engineering Challenges
• 37:23 Magic wand question
• 40:32 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Thora Eberts: 0:00

It's not just about getting young people into work and making sure that they have the skills to be successful, but helping them really define what success looks like for them and what they want to get out of work. So the aspiration isn't just to be in employment, but to be in employment to meet the desires that they have for their lives and their futures.

Faiza Khan MBE: 0:34

Welcome everybody to this Foundation and Friends podcast, where we're taking conversations from across our network of partners to highlight particular topics relevant to education, skills and development. Here at City & Guilds, our purpose is helping people, organisations and economies develop their skills for growth. Through our foundation team, we are a catalyst for this work by helping to remove barriers for people getting a job and celebrating best practice. I'm Faiza Khan and I'm delighted to say that I have the joy of heading up the foundation as the Executive Director for Corporate Affairs and Foundation, and one of the things we've been doing is enabling these podcasts to bring the insight and the learning that we're getting about what's happening in the skills sector out to much more people. So I've got two wonderful foundation friends that I'm going to introduce you to. The first is Thora Eberts, director of Network Delivery for UK Youth.

Thora Eberts: 1:31

Hello everyone, this is Thora here and just delighted to be part of this conversation this morning.

Fazia Khan MBE: 1:36

And the second is Maddie, Director of Engagement Programmes at EngineeringUK. This is Maddie, also very excited to be part of this conversation.

Maddie Dinwoodie: 1:41

Fantastic so, Maddie, I very excited to be part of this conversation.

Fazia Khan MBE: 1:46

Fantastic. So, Maddie, I'm going to start with Thora, actually, so you've got a bit of time to think about what you want to get across. Well, for Thora, now UK Youth. You've been around for over 100 years. You represent 12 million young people across the UK. That's the population of youth that we have and actually speaks to how much of a talent pool is there for us in the UK. I know you work with thousands of organisations and you've got an exciting new 2025 strategy that's going to take youth much further with a whole range of organisations, and I'm so delighted you're here to tell us a bit more about what you do in your work. Can I ask you what most inspired you when you started working at UK Youth and what keeps you motivated as you look ahead to what you're trying to do?

Thora Eberts: 2:26

Yeah, so I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area originally and so grew up in a very diverse part of California and witnessed firsthand the impact of inequality and, in particular, how it affects young people. So I've always been driven to try and help make the world a fairer and better place for young people, and I've done that primarily through education. Why I joined UK Youth is because I find the organisation's vision for young people and strategy incredibly ambitious. I think it presents a lot of hope for what the youth sector, with other sectors, can help achieve with and for young people In particular, building a movement and cross-sector partnerships, bringing together young people at the heart of what we do, but working alongside adults who serve them to improve their lives and youth work being a key catalyst there. In terms of what keeps me motivated, it's all the young people that I get the privilege of interacting with in my role.

So you know everybody from our #iwill ambassadors to the young people that are part of our programs, youth workers and other sector leaders. Just the more time you spend with young people, the more you realise their energy, their drive is such a gift and something that feels like we're on the cusp, I think of really harnessing in a much more meaningful way.

Fazia Khan MBE: 3:52

Fantastic, and then having been to just one part of California and I remember how there's so much polarisation there and we're seeing that very much play out here too. We're in an increasingly divided world where equity is harder to achieve and not more so for the young people that are traditionally we call neat. I hate that label. It's been around for a while and it means not in education, employment or training and I guess, taking your equity lens, what do you believe would be the most impactful intervention for government to make, and how can we bring in a range of sectors to help facilitate this, to help overcome this situation? We're in with needs. I think we're at sort of 10 years ago levels in terms of those numbers rising again. So what do you think we can do?

Thora Eberts: 4:35

Well, at UK Youth, we believe that youth workers are part of the answer and the key here, and some of our recent research really highlights that. So we've recently conducted research that shows the economic value of youth work and, in particular, that it's already saving billions of pounds for the taxpayer. So our research shows that for every one pound that's invested in youth work, the return on the investment for the government is between three pounds 20 and six pounds 40, which is huge, and that in terms of the estimated direct economic value of the youth sector in England that it's adding about 0.8 billion to increased employment and education outcomes for young people. So the power of youth work is key here. What we see as kind of fundamental to that is the role that youth workers play in building connections between young people, their communities, employers in their communities, aspirations and creating the conditions that can help get young people both into employment and staying in employment.

And in terms of what we would ask all of the you know political parties across the UK to do and consider is three things. One, we would ask that they deliver the long-term leadership and investment that is needed to unlock youth work for all young people. Health sector, for implementing effective policies for young people that don't segment young people's lives into fractions of a pizza, but look at young people as a whole and build policies that cut across the lives of young people to bring together those sectors more coherently. And lastly, the most important thing, that government and policymakers actually listen to young people and engage in meaningful youth voice and youth participation activities so that young people's voices are at the center of driving these debates and policy decisions.

Fazia Khan MBE: 6:57

Fantastic and I think young people being at the centre is absolutely key and no decisions about us without us comes to mind. And in the last administration we've seen youth policy move from the Cabinet Office to the DfE to now the DCMS and I think, as you talk about pizza, I think of the government carving up of pizzas and policy and how that unintended consequence between departments is actually impacting real lives when the policies coming out don't join up.

Thora Eberts: 7:24

Yeah, you're absolutely right that it's both structural issues in terms of how government structures, departments and policymaking, and avoiding the fragmentation and silos that we have at the moment. And it's also, then, how all of the sectors that work with and support young people overcome those potential barriers and fragmentation on the ground as well. At the moment, we tend to see cross-sector professionals coming together when something has gone terribly wrong for a young person, as opposed to coming together on the ground to help create better support networks and mechanisms for young people from the outset in a preventative way.

Fazia Khan MBE: 8:10

How can young people get involved in advocacy efforts to influence policy changes? I believe there is a greater awareness around social engagement and political engagement now than with previous generations. Thora.

Thora Eberts: 8:22

Yeah. So this is a really interesting one because, on the one hand, heck yes, like we've got so many examples of how young people are actively engaged in their communities to lead change. I mean social action, for example, the #iwill  movement, which has been going strong for 10 years Now. The #iwill movement, which has been going strong for 10 years Now. That's a really, really effective example of how young people are identifying issues that matter to them, whether that's locally or globally, and doing something about it. We also know that young people have much greater awareness of the kind of challenges facing our society at the moment, both local, global, environmental. But unfortunately, we've seen that the number of young people turning out to vote has been increasingly declining since the millennium, which is really really unfortunate because in order to have true democracy, we need to make sure that we have representation across everyone in the UK and that young people's voices are as important in some cases, if not more important than than others. Lots of political parties are pledging to give young people the vote at 16, which we think is fantastic so Labour, the Lib Dems and the SMP and we know that the younger first time voter, the more engaged that they will be for later votes throughout their lives. So that early initial engagement is really crucial for ongoing democracy and social engagement and involvement. And also, if you just think about the equity lens, again, like young people from the age of 16 or 17, they can pay tax, they can join the army, can pay tax, they can join the army. You know they are expected to play an active role in providing for the country, but then don't have a direct and active say at the moment in terms of how they're governed.

However, it's really really encouraging data on this recently just to share is in addition to #iwill ambassadors all over the UK just being incredibly active in the lead up to the general election on media and talking about the importance of voting and getting young people to vote, lowering the voting age to 16.

I think there's a really really good example out there, which is the Give an X campaign. I just want to share some stats from that that are really really encouraging. So this campaign has had some pretty impressive turnout since the general election was announced. So since the general election was announced, nearly 3 million people have registered to vote. So we've had 3 million new applications to register to vote since the announcement of the general election, which is fantastic, but of those, nearly 756,000 are people who are under the age of 25. So, right, it's amazing I mean it just gives me so much hope again hope for the future that we've got already really solid examples of social action in action and young people taking a lead and talking about the issues that mean something to them. And now, since the announcement of the general election, we've got some really, really tangible data about the increase in voter turnout in young people, which is fantastic.

Fazia Khan MBE: 11:33

It is fantastic and colleagues listening might not know I will campaign. I'd encourage you to have a look. I mean there'll be lots of initiatives that are helping people recognise the importance of democratic participation and lots of initiatives that are aimed at young people. But in my head, the last 10 years' concerted effort, all that #iwill campaign and then seeing that translate perhaps into more young people recognising they have a role to play in the voting space. There has to be some connection, because I know how much you've be doing to get that social action space much more lively, much more recognised, much more funded, and so perhaps that's also had a contribution to those that have gone off and decided to register to vote.

Just also one other point recognising that we're operating in a world that is increasingly narrowing in terms of space for civic society and for voice. If you look at Civicus Monitor, for example, you will be able to see where the UK is and where other countries are, and indeed we are in a time when lots of people are going to their polls across the world, so really important that our young people are heard here in the UK and across the world. Thanks for calling those points out. So on to the next question, Thora what do you believe are the key challenges facing young people when it comes to employability and skills training? Specifically, how can they overcome those?

Thora Eberts: 12:52

Yeah. So it's interesting to look at this from kind of two sides of a coin. So, on the one hand, we can't ignore the fact that there are severe economic challenges facing young people. To share a couple of stats that might help illustrate the point. So data from the Princess Trust shows that the economic cost of youth unemployment is to was forecast to increase to almost seven billion in 2022. So, in the wake of the pandemic, we're seeing that youth unemployment is becoming an even more significant issue and that it's having a negative impact on the economy. Similarly, the unemployment rate among young people aged 18 to 24 was 12.2%, compared to 4.4% for the whole population in mid-2023. So young people are disproportionately represented in the unemployment stats compared to all other people of working age. And obviously we can't ignore that there are huge kind of economic challenges facing young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. So we know that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are 50% more likely not to be in education, employment or training compared to their more well-off peers. So there are economic challenges. However, there's also challenges in public perceptions of young people and, especially as adults age, there continue to be increasing perceptions that young people are somehow part of the problem or part of the challenge.

And our work on employability shows three things One, the importance of building connections between young people, their communities and employers locally. And we found that youth workers are a really essential mechanism for doing that and to building those bridges between young people and employment opportunities to that essential skills play a really, really crucial role in helping to support and prepare young people for the world of work. And, again, our programs support youth workers to help young people develop those skills. And we've also found that youth workers play a really essential role in helping young people build their aspirations. So it's not just about getting young people into work and making sure that they have the skills to be successful, but helping them really define what success looks like for them and what they want to get out of work. So the aspiration isn't just to be in employment, but to be in employment to meet the desires that they have for their lives and their futures.

And there's also a responsibility here on employers. I know there's been a lot of discussion in the media recently about kind of the aging workforce and how can employers be taking more of an active role to accommodate those of us who are older people as the workforce ages. Well, we want to see a similar emphasis on how employers can support and actively engage the earlier end and spectrum of the workforce and their role in helping to create spaces where young people feel engaged and valued, and our employability programs have had some really good and impressive success in this. So, for example, our programme Hatch, which is an employability programme that we deliver in partnership with KFC, has shown that 68% of young people who participated in the program when they were contacted three months after the programme finished that they had secured ongoing employment. So that's really, really brilliant.

Fazia Khan MBE: 16:33

Great. And on to the last question for you, Thora what would you like to see City & Guilds of UK Youth doing and working together on to create meaningful change for young people and society as a whole? Collaborate and share our unique expertise.

Thora Eberts: 16:52

We've got three things that we think could be really helpful here.

One is we are hosting a joined-up summit in October.

So this is going to be an event that brings together leaders and decision makers and the business sector, across all sectors, supporting and working with people to do three things To start a conversation about what specific examples do we have over the last generation of localised, effective, cross-sector collaboration and practice that's genuinely made a difference for young people.

So we're going to be infusing from the top some specific examples of what works for young people. We've been working with what Works Centers, especially the Youth Futures Foundation, to identify the specific research and evidence about what works for young people in employment. And we want to kind of bring the bottom up practitioner led evidence and the top down empirical evidence together to help practitioners understand and make some commitments about how they can turn that evidence into action in terms of their own practice. It would be great to have City & Guilds there. It'd be wonderful to have you bring partners to the event who would be really, really useful to have as part of that conversation. And then, finally, we would really love, in the work that you do, for you to use some of our research and evidence and champion the role of youth work in employability and sign up to the Power of Youth Charter, as well as a great way to demonstrate your commitment to young people.

Fazia Khan MBE: 18:25

I think we can probably do all of that, so that's great.. Thank you so much, thanks. Okay.

So now on to our next guest, Maddie Dinwiddie, Director of Engagement and Programmes at EngineeringUK, another really well-established organisation and actually another organisation that is embarking on its current new strategy to bring engineering to more young people across the UK. And there's lots that you do, Maddie, to make that a reality, but also lots of challenges, as your recent report points to, which I'm really looking forward to unpacking with you. So should we get straight into it? Yeah, absolutely Fantastic. So your report looking at tomorrow's engineers identified a projected growth in engineering workforce, which is great, and skill requirements are needed for this. What is the growth down to and how best do we meet that growth?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 19:26

Really great question and first it's probably worth kind of outlining what that projected growth looks like. So engineering jobs are expected to grow across the UK between now and 2030, faster than any other occupation and although that's great and obviously it's driving forward lots of areas, currently there is a lack of both people and skills to meet this need. So, in terms of what it's related to, we know that a lot of this is to do with the green transition.

So the Climate Change Committee are estimating up to 725,000 new jobs needed by 2030 to support that transition to net zero and we know a significant proportion of these jobs are in engineering related sectors, are in engineering related sectors. So, as you can imagine, low carbon building, retrofitting, renewable energy, electric vehicle manufacturing. So that's a really big area, that green transition. But engineering skills are actually also needed across all sectors and I think that is something that people often don't associate them with. So, thinking about those sectors, from creative all the way through to sort of big data and ultimately we need more people to take up engineering roles due to that demand, obviously, and part of that is ensuring more young people are on educational pathways into engineering and technology, and we're actually calling on the new government to take more of a strategic approach to this, thinking about addressing these skills shortages and committing to a national overarching engineering and tech workforce strategy that links to a STEM educational plan so we can really back cast looking at those workforce needs and aligning that skills plan from an education perspective as well.

Fazia Khan MBE: 21:25

Fantastic and your point about how far engineering spreads and how big the purview should be. So thank you for articulating some of that challenge and the opportunity ahead of us. So your research also points to a particular gap for girls. So fewer girls around 16% say engineering is suitable for them, compared with a much higher proportion of boys around 44%. And only 12% of girls say engineering fits with who they are, compared to boys at 38%. How do you address this gender bias?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 22:30

A really good question. As you can imagine, the data is a real concern to us and tackling these issues is absolutely at the core of our work. So EngineeringUK exists to ensure that we've got the workforce needed for engineering and technology to thrive, and we need it to thrive to ensure that we have economic prosperity and, as I've kind of talked about before, ensure that we achieve net zero. But it's obviously really important that we have the diversity in that workforce as well. We know that innovation comes through that diverse workforce. We know that we're going to create solutions that are more accessible and inclusive to all if we have that diversity. And, ultimately, we know that organisations are much more productive and effective when they have diverse workforce. So it's absolutely at the heart of our work and it's probably just worth noting that this data is particularly interesting when you look at the other side of the pipeline, so looking at industry. So we have done some research recently that has shown that only 15.7% of the engineering and tech workforce is made up of women and that's in contrast to 56% of women making up the rest of the UK workforce, in contrast to 56% of women making up the rest of the UK workforce. So that difference is really stark and we've actually shown that this year that number has gone down. So last year it was 16.5. And although we're seeing a slight increase in the numbers going into engineering, we're seeing women leave the sector between the ages of 35 and 44.

So that's a key focus for us for both of those reasons, and our focus, obviously as part of a much wider system, is really around young people. So how do we ensure that more young people from all backgrounds progress into engineering and technology, and obviously we particularly focus on those are underrepresented. So obviously we can't do it alone. It's a systemic issue and we need to work in partnership. So we work in partnership to drive collective action. We bring together employers, charities, universities and funders working in this space to really drive up the quality and collective impact of career education activities, because we know, obviously, that together we're much bigger and more impactful than the sum of all of our parts, kind of doing little pieces individually. We also provide lots of research, so we've talked about some of it already really understanding workforce needs and understanding what inspires but also what deters young people from choosing a career in engineering, and we share that learning really widely in order, you know the research isn't just for us as an organisation. It's about really driving change, influencing practice and policy in this space.

Fazia Khan MBE: 25:24

Influencing practice and policy in this space. So, Maddie, lots to address there. Can you help us with examples of community-based engineering projects and or collaborations that have significantly impacted local use?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 25:39

So I think firstly, before I kind of talk about examples, I think it's really important to outline that, although individual projects, it's really important for them to be impactful and we've done a number of kind of evidence reviews to understand within those individual projects what makes them most impactful. So, for example, having practical activities, having real world examples, relatable role models what we know is that a sustained pathway of careers activities and experiences are when there is a really significant impact on the career choices of young people. So it's not just about that one interaction, it's about the opportunity for a young person to be involved in multiple career activities and experiences. So I think programmes that really consider this sustained engagement for young people and how they work with others and how they collaborate is really important. So some organisations might think about that pathway and provide opportunities independently and others might work collaboratively with others.

And then, I'll talk about Big Bang. So we also know that those multiple interactions are really important. But also interactions with employers and industry are really important for young people. So Big Bang, which I've been to recently and still absolutely buzzing from it, is our annual careers fair where we connect over 20,000 young people with industry. So we had over yeah, it's huge, it's three days.

We had over 15 exhibitors from across the STEM sector and they come, they have big kind of showcases of their work, they bring their staff in particular staff that have kind of just entered the industry, and they really think about representation from those staff and they talk to young people to inspire them into their area.

Actually, we had someone from a health perspective looking at the engineering of the keyhole surgery, which was a really interesting stand just talking about your, your example earlier and many of the young people that were there also entered our big band competition, which is a competition for science, innovation, for young people to come up with ideas that they want to do to kind of change their area and their lives and their society. And we had one young girl who won the Young Engineer of the Year who absolutely blew me away. She had developed a product which was a portable pollution monitor designed to test air quality in schools and residential areas. In schools and residential areas, and it read the pollution and then popped up with an emoji, kind of happy or sad, depending on how the pollution was. So really inspiring.

Fazia Khan MBE: 28:53

That's amazing. So not just engineering and work there, but also addressing kind of you know, climate justice issues, actually for the communities that perhaps can't talk to what's around them, having engineering there with a solution that can say look, this is how you can find out what's going on around you Amazing, amazing stuff. So in terms of industry trends, Maddie, can I move you on to how your programs address current industry trends and events? Developments in engineering.

Maddie Dinwoodie: 29:25

I think what's interesting here is that trends are moving really quickly, so we have to think about how we kind of account for that. So broadly, we obviously do work to understand the workforce trends and we share this learning, as I've kind of talked about, to influence practice and policy. But from a program perspective, we consider this workforce need in the design of our programs when we're identifying areas we think we should focus on. So we look at a number of different factors that allow us to think about where that focus area should be and workforce need is one of them. So, for example, our climate schools programme focuses on climate action and, as we obviously, as I've highlighted, there's huge growth in this.

We also work with industry through the design of our programmes and as well as young people and teachers, really to ensure that the programmes are both educationally enriching for young people but also working for industry as well, are both educationally enriching for young people but also working for industry as well, and we do that through thinking groups or working groups and our programmes also have advisory boards with industry represented and, interestingly, what's happening in industry at the moment is moving so quickly that really the key things needed for young people and Tora I think you mentioned this as well are those essential employability skills, and so the work that we do is less around kind of knowledge in terms of what's happening right now, but more about what skills are needed for the industry to focus on.

So we align our work to Skills Builder and Engineering Habits of Mind from the Royal Academy of Engineering, which really focuses on skills like systems thinking, adapting, problem finding, creative problem solving and visualising, rather than that industry knowledge. We do use exciting kind of innovations from industry to bring into the classroom to get young people's engagement and attention, but it's less about that kind of specific knowledge building and more about that essential skill development perspective.

Fazia Khan MBE: 31:38

Maddie, do you think educators are doing enough to sign post-careers in engineering, and what role could they play in encouraging young people, in particular those from underrepresented communities, into the industry?

So, yes, we do a lot of work with schools and I obviously speak to a lot of teachers and have a good kind of awareness of what's happening at the moment. I think it's really important, before I answer this question, just to highlight and we all know this the really difficult circumstances that teachers are faced with at the moment. We know that there's resourcing challenges, there's huge difficulties in terms of the recruitment and retention of specialist science teachers. So, yes, I think educators need to do more. We know that 60% of young people don't know the pathways into engineering. We know that 60% of young people don't know the pathways into engineering. However, this can't just be down to educators. They're working in a very difficult system at the moment, so this is absolutely a collective effort and I think it's probably worth highlighting.

Signposting into a career in engineering really starts with encouraging and retaining that interest in STEM subjects and, unfortunately, we're seeing a decline in young people's interest in science in school, and this is seen particular in young girls, and an interest in engineering and tech drops off with age and, again, as we've talked about, this is particularly notable in girls.

Interestingly, though, despite this, a third of students are really interested in a career to help tackle climate change, and obviously we've talked about that link between engineering and tech solutions and tackling climate change. So there's more to be done to ensure young people know about that space. And alongside the decline in young people's interest in science, we're also seeing a decline in practicals. So most young people are watching videos of demonstrations and practicals rather than doing it themselves, and we know hands-on practical science is a key motivator for young people to engage in science, especially those from an underrepresented background. So I think, alongside this sign posting piece, there is also a piece around inspiring and engaging young people to stay within their their STEM subjects, and I don't think this is just down to educators. There's a role that industry needs to play in terms of showcasing the exciting and the breadth of range across engineering, and I also think there's a role for government to play in terms of ensuring that teaching in STEM is engaging and improving that STEM teacher recruitment and so, maddie, you've got such a lot of insight.

Fazia Khan MBE: 34:29

Given all the challenges that young people are faced with when they're considering an engineering career, what advice would you give a young person if they're thinking about getting involved?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 34:38

First of all, I guess I would say do it. I'm a definite advocate for going into the engineering sector as, as I've talked about, there's lots of opportunity. I think being at the forefront of some of that innovation in terms of tackling climate change is really exciting and you know it is a good career with well-paid jobs. In terms of advice, I would say there's lots of routes into engineering. So going in from a university perspective isn't the only route. You can go in for apprenticeships, and we're seeing lots of organisations have apprentices in their engineering companies, and T Levels is obviously another route in as well. So I would say, think about that route in that works for you in terms of where you want to go, and I would also think about the huge opportunity that it creates. I think the other thing that is really exciting about engineering that maybe people don't always relate to is its creativity. I think it's a really creative career. You're identifying problems, creating solutions and, you know, really iterating. Definitely go for it if you're thinking about it.

Fazia Khan MBE: 35:52

Fantastic, Maddie, you've got such a backbite in youth organisations. I know you to be somebody who's been an ambassador for young talent and, from what I know of you and the work that you've done in your career, you've done a lot of that in collaboration and I know you're a big believer in doing things together. In fact, the new strategy at Engineering UK talks about collective impact. It talks about and you've talked about not being able to address these challenges alone that it needs everyone. So can you help us understand what collaboration you see could lead to the most meaningful solutions?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 36:29

Yeah, as you say, I think collaboration is absolutely the solution. Working together and, I think, thinking about it from the perspective of a young person. We know that a young person needs lots of different meaningful engagements and we know that they have lots of different trusted adults in their lives. So teachers, parents, but youth workers are obviously really trusted in a young person's life as well trusted in a young person's life as well and so by collaborating collectively and ensuring that all of those people in a young person's life are kind of skilled up and able to equip young people with the skills and the knowledge needed to go into the engineering sector, can only be more impactful.

Fazia Khan MBE: 37:08

Fantastic. Thank you, Maddie. That's been so interesting and getting under the skin of all the things that Engineering UK are trying to do, both to present the scale of the opportunity but also address some of the challenges in how we all take that opportunity. Thora, I'm going to ask you one last question and I'll come to Maddie second.

Fazia Khan MBE: 37:58

And it's on, if you had a magic wand, Thora, of all the things that you've talked about,

Thora Eberts:

So many things but if there was one thing, one thing you could wave them and that through putting them at the center, we can. We'll eliminate that. What I called it before, that pizza where you know, education looks at this one aspect of a young person and make sure that they're addressing kind of educational outcomes and social services. Look at this one aspect of a young person. And the health service or the criminal justice service. Look at this one aspect of a young person.

If we, if we flip the way we think about policy formation for young people and if we genuinely have people young people at the center of it, their voices being heard, shaping policy, then you know the siloed working that we have and Maddie spoke about this really beautifully, about the importance of collaboration across. You know, educators can't do it alone, youth workers can't do it alone. If we put young people at the center and we listen to them and their experience, they're already telling us that this is the answer, that genuine cross-sector collaboration based on the issues and challenges that they are facing is the answer. So I just think we need to just shake it up and we need to stop thinking about policy from the perspective of governmental departments or from adults jobs in the world and we need to start thinking about policy from young people's experience of being young people in this world right now. What are the things that matter to them and what do they believe is going to make the biggest difference, you know? And then, of course, we lower the voting age to 16.

Fazia Khan MBE: 39:20

It would be a no-brainer I'm going to summarise that, as a young people, in the center would be your wish, because it really would take all of that forward. And, Maddie, you, you have a magic wand in your hand and you can make anything happen. We've got all this scale of challenge that you've talked about. What one thing would you go for on your wish?

Maddie Dinwoodie: 39:40

I'm loving this magic wand. I think mine would be around improving STEM education so that it works for everybody. It links to needs of industry and there's really improved careers advice for young people. There is so much unlocked talent because young people aren't able to reach their potential, they don't understand what opportunities are available and we're missing out on that. So I think if I had that magic wand, I would want all young people to really enable themselves to kind of believe in themselves, understand those opportunities and have the skills to to reach their potential. And obviously on the flip side of that, that supports industry as well, because it means that we'll be much more productive. We'll unlock all of that talent and mistake and last hour.

Fazia Khan MBE: 40:33

So we've got one magic wand that's going to put young people at the centre and another that's going to realise their potential. What a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so much. Both of you Really really appreciate you taking the time to engage with City & Guilds, to share your perspectives, to come on a platform. Hopefully more people will join us on these as we progress. So thanks so much.