Young Dale engineer featuring in "Engineers Making a Difference"

Local engineer featuring in “Engineers Making a Difference"

In early March 2023 every state secondary school in the UK will receive a free school kit containing two copies of the book, a Teacher’s Guide, 12 hot topic posters, and a 4-metre-long timeline wall chart. The books and resources have been supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. The Foundation was set up by Lord Sainsbury to give charitable funding to science, education, and arts projects.

Sam is 25 years old and joined Dale after being awarded A*-B A levels from Norton College. She has recently been awarded a First-Class Engineering Degree having completed her degree apprenticeship with Dale and is thrilled to have been involved in the EMAD project as she is passionate about promoting engineering as a career.

I didn’t choose a traditional route into engineering, via university, but decided to qualify with an apprenticeship; this meant I could work whilst taking my degree so I gained work experience and no student debt, which was a good choice for me. So far, it’s  been a great journey, with lots of opportunities like this one with the EMAD project.

I really think it’s important for young people, especially girls, to see the opportunities in engineering. I love maths and problem solving and I’m also creative person - a combination works well in my career here at Dale where I am responsible for working with clients to provide critical back up power solutions.

Gavin Hepburn, CEO at Dale describes Sam as an inspiration to young people who may be considering a career in engineering

Sam is a great ambassador for both our company and engineering. She chose an apprenticeship, despite being offered places at university, and is carving out a very promising career here at Dale. She worked in all areas of the business before choosing to focus on applications – that’s where we work closely with customers to understand their particular backup power requirement and then we design a bespoke solution.

 “It's really important that we support projects like EMAD as our local area is full of thriving engineering businesses but, like the rest of the UK, is desperately short of engineers. We need to work hard to show students the many opportunities available and promote STEM subjects to all students if the UK is to have enough engineers in the future.

Dale has been running an award-wining apprenticeship programme for almost 15 years and was awarded a Princess Royal Training Award 2016, a Queen’s Award for Enterprise; Promoting Social Mobility 2018 along with several awards at regional and national level for individual apprentices’ achievements. Sam Magowan was awarded the Mary George Memorial Prize for Apprentices at the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2019.

“Engineers Making A Difference” will be on general sale from the 2 March 2023 and is available via What on Earth Books and online and physical bookshops.