HEALTHCARE ESTATES 2024 KEYNOTES
Above: Prof. Chudley said that although the proportion of women on the Engineering Council register was rising year on year, it was not nearly high enough.
Above right: Discussing the Engineering Council’s planned Registration review, Professor Chudley said the professional body approval of the standard, and the review of commitment and competence, were key.
– is the last bullet point – i.e. that the route to assessment for all titles has evolved, and that it’s about valuing all the routes. What’s really exciting is the individual route becoming more popular than the standard one for all titles except Chartered Engineer.” This, the Professor explained, meant that while the route
to Chartered Engineer still required an MEng (Master of Engineering) or equivalent degree, the pathways to EngTech and Incorporated Engineer were now valuing other routes, i.e. such as apprenticeships. He said: “A degree is now not the be-all-and-end-all. Nor is an apprenticeship ‘a failed A level’ route, but rather one worth celebrating in the way you can progress.” He continued: “You could question what degrees will look like in the future? Will they exist?, or Will we go down a micro-credential route? Will young people in industry demand things that are constantly changing to suit the environment they’re working in, rather than an arbitrary three or four-year degree completed 20 years ago, but that is still recognised as giving you the knowledge and understanding for what you’re doing now?”
Professor John Chudley of the Engineering Council said he was keen to emphasise the importance of valuing all routes to professional registration.
The age profile Looking at the current age profile of professional engineering registrants, Prof. Chudley said it was good to see a rise in those aged 30-49. “However,” he said, “we need a big increase in those aged 18 to 24; it’s currently only 0.6%. Why aren’t all the apprentices being registered as EngTech when they’ve done their Level 3 apprenticeship? It should almost be automatic, and then that percentage would increase, and it would get people thinking of engineering as a profession to be celebrated, not just a job.”
Nor, the Professor argued, was the
proportion of women on the register high enough, although it was rising. He told the conference: “What’s pleasing is that if the new registrants by gender keep increasing, the total registrants by gender will also keep increasing. I’m putting it there, not really to celebrate, but as going in the right direction. We still need to work on this – with EngineeringUK, in getting young females interested in engineering and exciting them about it – by highlighting the technology involved, and the broad range of available roles.” Discussing the total number of
registrants registered by IHEEM, Prof. Chudley said: “We will be working on this together, and I think these figures just reflect where the register is currently – so, 618 in 2023, compared
40 Health Estate Journal January 2025
with 768 in 2018. However, the good news is about the number of apprentices and graduates. You have to sell this story early in a career, not later on. It must be embedded. If we look at the new final stage titles awarded, IHEEM is increasing on that. There is, however, still a long way to go.”
Role in higher apprenticeships He continued: “I used to be a director for the National Apprenticeship Service, and in 2011 was instrumental in introducing higher apprenticeships. I refuse to call them degree apprenticeships, because it makes it about the degree, not the competency element. They’re higher apprenticeships that the degree happens to be a part of, which is key. So here I think it’s important – and I hope this is what happens in the future – that it should be a ‘step on, step off’ approach.”
He continued: “If you look at this in green, going up
the left (of the slide), it is really not the knowledge and understanding element, but the professional body approval of a standard and review of competence and commitment that are probably more important, and we’ve lost that balance. What we really want is to allow individuals to step on and step off. We don’t help with our register, in that you can become EngTech at Level 3 – in ‘old school’ that would have been a technician apprentice, but basically, you then have to get to a Level 6, i.e., a Bachelor’s degree level equivalent, to become an Incorporated Engineer. That’s too big a jump, and, if anything, too close to Chartered Engineer,” Prof. Chudley explained. “If you start looking at the outcomes of various documents of the different streams, for Incorporated and Chartered Engineer, they are too close. We must look at that.” The speaker explained that, consequently, the Engineering Council is undertaking a registration review with engineering professionals that will involve industry and all the PEIs, which would go out for consultation later in 2024. The Professor said: “It’s to look at early career commitment derived from a statement of ethical principles.” He continued: “We always talk about ‘early career’, but unfortunately, when people discuss this, they tend to be to talking about the graduate training schemes, not the apprenticeships. We need that early career commitment for the 16-year-old going in to do the Level 2 or Level 3.” As regards progression through the register, Prof.
Chudley explained that a more sequential route, with ‘extra steps’, was being mooted. While ‘early days’ for the proposals – which he acknowledged ‘might get turned down’, he would be delighted, ‘maybe next year or the year after’, to come back and discuss the work the Engineering Council had done – working with IHEEM and the NHS – to ‘make this more valued’ among the individuals impacted. Touching on ‘parallel pathways for technicians and engineers with transferability’, the speaker said that on
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