JLR’s young engineers programme in the UK draws 328,000 people

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s Responsible Business of the Year, has announced record breaking figures for its award-winning education programme. More than 328,000 young people participated in JLR’s ‘Inspiring Tomorrow’s Engineers’ school STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education programme in 2013, an increase of more than 100,000 on the previous year.

This includes 226,000 young people who participated in schools ‘Challenge’ projects, 100,000 of whom participated in the Jaguar Maths in Motion Challenge alone, and more than 80,000 through outreach activities including secondary school partnership and careers events including Big Bang. More than 21,500 students visited JLR’s Education Business Partnership Centres at its five UK design, engineering and manufacturing facilities and 767 participated in work experience.

Many of these programmes are delivered with the support of JLR employees. More than 2,600 employees spent 11,251 hours supporting school visits, challenges and outreach events during 2013.

Speaking at the launch of Big Bang Fair, the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK, Jonathan Garrett, CSR Director, JLR said: "It is critical that we attract talented young people to become the next generation of engineers and technologists to support our ambitious growth plans. I am delighted we achieved such huge growth in our education engagement last year which feeds young people into our talent pipeline. We have a wide range of educational initiatives underway with the aim of getting young people excited about engineering and crucially, to encourage them to make the right subject choices at GCSE-level and beyond. Big Bang is a great opportunity for us to showcase the excellent career opportunities at Jaguar Land Rover and we hope it will help us inspire even more young people."

Jaguar Land Rover, which is the lead sponsor of Big Bang, is running various hands-on activities so young people can experience the excitement of engineering for themselves. This includes a fully immersive high tech demonstration explaining the company’s vehicle design process and future vision for driver/car connectivity. Young people can also participate in the Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge and Jaguar Maths in Motion Challenge, the UK’s largest maths challenge, and Land Rover Experience demonstration drives on a mini off-road course to experience the breadth and capability of Land Rover vehicles.