Sector Focus: Manchester still leads the way in chemical engineering

MORE than 100 years after chemical engineering was first taught in Manchester the city’s prominence in the discipline is being underlined by a new £30m home for the University of Manchester’s School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science.

The industrial revolution meant Manchester was at the forefront of advances in chemical engineering and it is considered to be the birthplace of the subject.

This legacy means the university is one of the leading departments in the country, competing with Imperial College London and Cambridge University.

It typically attracts around 240 undergraduates a year who go on to work in a range of industries. Around 60% come from the UK, with the remainder attracted to the course from outside Europe.

“Chemical engineering is all about making processes work more efficiently,” says Dr Stuart Holmes, a senior lecturer in the department, pictured below. “The graduates are a very marketable group of people who are recruited across the world in to numerous process industries.”

The North West is still a big employer with graduates heading to companies such as the Cheshire-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the food producer Cargill, which has a large base in Trafford. But they are also recruited by oil companies, nanotechnology specialists and chemical firms. “Anything that has a process where A+B goes to C+D,” says Dr Holmes.

“It’s a hugely diverse degree subject so it’s very powerful in the jobs market. Different sectors are suffering but on the whole we find the employability of our graduates is about as good as you can get. Nothing is recession proof but chemical engineering does do very well.”

The university’s School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science is currently based at the old UMIST campus but will move into the first phase of the new building in August. This will house undergraduate teaching laboratories and workshops. The second phase, with research labs and administrative space, is due to be completed by 2015. The five-storey building is part of a £650m construction programme across the university.

For more information about the department and to view a time-lapse video of the construction site go to: http://www.ceas.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/newbuilding/timelapse/