ShareProduction Engineering, good job prospects and considerable satisfaction on the part of employers
AQU Catalunya today presented its report on employability and university education in Production Engineering during a seminar of the same name. This report indicates that Production Engineering maintains three characteristics: predominantly male student body, excess demand due to good job prospects and low rate of students who finish within the expected time. The employer group places a high value on the skills acquired by graduates and more than half express that they have had problems when hiring due to the need to improve the ability to apply the knowledge acquired and solve problems in new or little-known environments.
The latest report prepared by AQU Catalunya on the employability of Production Engineering graduates highlights the three characteristics that continue to exist in these degree programmes. The first is that these bachelor's degrees – which belong to the subfields of Naval Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Electronic and Automatic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design, Chemical and Materials Engineering, and Industrial Engineering and Organisation – are particularly complicated for the students who take them, since only 44% finish them within the theoretically required time. This figure is particularly low when compared to the average of the Catalan Higher Education System (SUC), where 79.4% of students finish their bachelor's degrees within the expected time. That is to say, 35% more than in the aforementioned engineering degrees.
The second trend is the existence of a predominantly male student body. During the 2020-2021 academic year, for example, 8 out of 10 people enrolled in Production Engineering were men.
Thirdly, it is noteworthy that this group of bachelor's degrees has a much lower excess demand for places than the SUC average, which is 39%, while the demand for Production Engineering is 6%.
Regarding student satisfaction with the courses taken, of note is their satisfaction with the acquisition of personal and professional skills – which received a high rating, similar to the SUC as a whole – even though they show an average satisfaction with the development of communication skills lower than for the SUC as a whole (6.1 vs 7.1).
It also highlights that the number of students who have chosen the degree because it has good job prospects is 17 percentage points higher than the overall percentage of the SUC, at 30% of those enrolled. The most noteworthy degree in this regard is Industrial Engineering and Organisation; 47% of students say that job prospects were the reason that made them choose this degree course.
This career goal is fulfilled, as the data shows the good job placement rates for graduates of these bachelor's degrees. For example, 93.2% of graduates were in employment three years after graduating, 3% more than the SUC average. Furthermore, the gross monthly salary of graduates three years after graduation is also significantly higher than the average for the SUC, at 2,688 euros per month. Contractual stability is also a specific characteristic of the good results of Production Engineering, since 76.1% have a fixed employment contract, almost 20 percentage points more than the overall SUC, which is 56.3%.
Regarding the employers of graduates in this field, it is worth noting that 55% state that they have had problems when hiring. The reason given for this in 61% of cases was the lack of qualified people with the necessary skills to do the job. Of the employers surveyed, 48.9% thought the ability to apply the knowledge acquired and solve problems in new or unfamiliar environments was the skill Production Engineering graduates most needed to improve. However, employers rate the skills taught at universities in this area at 7.5.
Employability and university education in Production Engineering
Link to the infographic with the main results
You can watch the webinar on our YouTube channel: