Design Engineering

Whatever career you choose, employers will want to see evidence of the skills you have developed during your studies. Some roles will require your technical skills and academic knowledge, while others will place greater emphasis on transferable skills like problem solving, resilience and intellectual.

The typical skills developed by Imperial Design Engineering students during their degree are highly valued by employers and include:

• Selecting and applying concepts, methods, techniques, tools and technologies associated with design engineering with high levels of skill and imagination;
• Evaluating systems that are complex or ambiguous with appropriate design engineering methods and approaches, assessing their potential social, environmental, technological and economic impact;
• Creating innovative products, services and systems that challenge the understanding of design engineering practice and discipline, and deliver economic and social value;
• Reflecting critically on own work and peer review, to identify strengths and areas that need improvement;
• Communicating effectively through oral presentations, graphical representations, and written reports.

It’s good to reflect on your abilities and consider what skills you can evidence, as well as those you may need to enhance. Our Self reflection webpage can help you recognise and document your abilities. 

Your degree is just one way to build experience. Employers also value what you have been doing to develop your skills and knowledge outside your course, such as participating in student societies, part-time work, volunteering and sports. These experiences, along with work experience, can help develop your skills, explore different career paths and provide valuable examples for applications and interviews.

As an Imperial student you can participate, or take a leadership role, in a wide variety of Students’ Union activities where you’ll develop many skills. You also have free access to LinkedIn Learning and can use this to build or improve your technical and professional knowledge and abilities through expert-led courses.

You will also need to know how to communicate your skills effectively when applying for jobs or internships. For example, you will need to know how to create a strong CV, write a good cover letter and perform well in interviews. The Applications and interviews section of our website, along with our skills training and workshops, can help you understand how to write strong applications and prepare for every stage of the recruitment process.

Once you understand your skills through self reflection, the next step is to learn about the range of career areas that might be of interest to you. You could work in areas such as infrastructure, energy, water, consulting and technology, but there are many other paths you could choose.

For Design Engineering students it is helpful to consider whether you want to use your degree knowledge in a job. You can use our What do Imperial graduates do? Graduate Outcomes data to learn about some of the areas that Imperial Design Engineering students often go. Our How to research job sectors and occupations resources can help you to learn more about these sectors including desirable skills, responsibilities, professional development and salary expectations. You can also meet employers from many of these areas through Careers Service events and fairs which are advertised on JobsLive and in our weekly newsletter.

You may also find it useful to explore Imperial College LinkedIn Design Engineering where you can learn about the career paths of our Design Engineering alumni as their careers develop over time.

These resources are intended to inspire rather than define your options. Don't feel limited by the paths others have taken and focus on the careers that match your own interests, strengths and goals.

If you are interested in continuing to use your Design Engineering knowledge you could consider graduate roles in some of these areas:

• Design engineering/consultancy
• Product design/management
• Mechatronics engineering
• Data analysis
• Robotics engineering
• Electronic engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Software engineering
• Academic research
• UX/UI designer

If you are interested in continuing to use your engineering knowledge but not in industry, you might like to explore career areas such as:

• Patent attorney
• Teaching
• Technical consultancy

Here are some of the typical careers outside engineering that design engineers can go into:

• Graduate management roles
• Management/strategy consulting
• Investment banking
• Business/technical analyst roles
• IT
• Logistics

Through your research you’ll see that there’s a very wide range of options open to
Design Engineering graduates. Some of these are directly accessible from a first degree while others may require additional further study. This can create many questions that you’ll want to answer and speaking to a careers consultant through one of our one-to-one appointments may help after your initial research.

In addition to our resources, you may also find the national resource  Prospects – Design Engineering to have a similar but alternative commentary to the resources listed here for you.

A professional body, association or society seeks to further a particular profession and the interests of individuals engaged in that profession. The body maintains an oversight of the knowledge, skills, conduct and practice of that profession and can offer accreditation or chartership. You can often use professional bodies to access training or networking events and explore related career options.

Below are some links to professional bodies that deal with various areas related to Design Engineering. Many offer student membership which can give you access to job listings and careers information while offering great networking opportunities. Some memberships may even allow you to register your CV to vacancy matching services or to be viewed by other members of the community.

• Institute of Engineering Designers 
• Royal Academy of Engineering 
• The Association of Consulting & Engineering 
• Chartered Society of Designers
• Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
• Women’s Engineering Society
• Engineering Council 
• Institute of Mechanical Engineers
• Design Council

There are many well-known Multinational Companies (MNCs) offering graduate level jobs but Small or Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), defined as organisations with fewer than 250 employees, also offer a wide range of interesting and unique graduate-level roles. Due to a smaller marketing budget SMEs can be harder to find and they often rely on you approaching them speculatively to show motivation and interest. They will sometimes engage with universities through incubation hubs to help them grow skills and expertise. The Imperial Enterprise Lab often run events to help students understand and network with SME and start-up communities.

• The Association of Consulting & Engineering ‘find a consultant’ page allows you to search for engineering consultants by specialism.
• The Design Directory can be used to find specialist design related companies as a starting point.
• Work in startups is a jobs board, however, it can be used as a research tool to find names of SMEs which can then be used on other websites like LinkedIn to explore further.
• Wellfound gives information about tech and start up roles.
• Gradcracker is a well-known online internship and graduate role jobs board.
• The Design Business Association is the industry's trade association representing a vibrant community of design agencies and design-centric businesses and could be a good place to identify business to contact.
• You can also explore Just Engineers for a wide range of opportunities.
• More traditional jobs boards: IET Engineering and Technology Jobs and The Engineer Jobs.
• For more digital, electronic and UX type roles Electronics Weekly Jobs and Bubble Jobs are good places to start.
• Welcome to the Jungle is a job matching platform focussed on tech and high-growth companies.

A jobs board essentially lists vacancies and attracts applicants from an open market of job seekers while a recruitment agency attempts to find the most suitable candidate for a specific job. While an agency can bring many benefits to a job seeker it’s important to remember that the agent is working for their client (that is, the company with the job vacancy).  

While agencies can form part of your job search, they should not be your only strategy - if you’re asked to pay a fee, we'd encourage you to stop and think if it’s necessary and what you would gain in return!  Specialist recruitment agencies such as Nolan Recruitment advertise vacancies for design engineers. 

Career planning often takes time and can sometimes feel overwhelming. It’s a good idea to set aside a small amount of time on a regular basis to maintain momentum. Below are some things to get you started:

• Sign up to the Imperial Careers Newsletter by checking the relevant box on your personal profile on JobsLive;
• Learn about the application timelines for applying for further study, work experience and graduate employment;
• See our What's on pages to find out about the different types of events that we run, including workshops, careers fairs, career talks, and hear from alumni and employers about different types of work;
• Learn the skills that will help you succeed on the job market in the Applications and interviews section of our website, and by attending our skills training and workshops.

If you feel stuck with your career planning, you could book a one-to-one appointment to talk it through with a careers consultant. Jamie Wright  is the careers consultant for Design Engineering but you can see any of our consultants for your first appointment.