UKís Top Ten Engineering Undergraduates announced in TARGETjobs award shortlist

The shortlist is announced today for the Engineering Undergraduate of the Year Award run in association with npower. The new category in the TARGETjobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards, the largest student awards in the world, was launched in January to find Britainís most promising engineer and has attracted over 200 talented undergraduates.

Students from 30 of the UKís leading Universities have battled it out in the rigorous competition with finalists coming from Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Queens University Belfast, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Southampton and Warwick Universities, all well recognised for their engineering departments. Four of the ten finalists are women, reflecting a growing interest in engineering careers amongst this underrepresented group and well above the 3% of registered engineers who are women.

The ten finalists, who are studying different engineering courses including chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering, fought off stiff competition in a number of phased assessments throughout the year. The first of these was an online technical test developed by the Institute of Engineering and Technology. As part of this test candidates were also asked to produce a discursive on the future of sustainable power generation. The forty highest scoring candidates were then invited to take part in a competency-based telephone interview with npower to assess ësofterí skills such as communications.

The winner of the competition will be announced at the TARGETjobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards ceremony at Grosvenor House in Mayfair, London, on May 21st. The gala event will have an audience of 1,000 and the awards will be presented by popular comedian Alan Carr.

Chris Phillips, publishing director at Group GTI, the organisers of the TARGETjobs Awards, comments: ìTARGETjobs would like to thank all the students who entered the Engineering Undergraduate of the Year Award and weíd like to pass on our congratulations to the finalists. We look forward to welcoming them to the awards ceremony on 21st May when the winning candidate will be announced by npower and wish everyone the best of luck!î