Graduate shortage: the key to civil engineering's future?

Recent years have seen a steady decline in admissions to UK civil engineering degree courses such that an intense skills shortage looms. Civil engineering graduates will be in greater demand than ever before-but ironically this could finally trigger the increase in status that the profession has sought for so long. This paper reveals the roller-coaster trend in university admissions since 1966 and shows why many of the engineering departments across the country are now struggling to survive. But, reassuringly, there are signs that the profession is at last attracting an increasing number of high-calibre students.