STEM Workshops in Bath

Bath has a long engineering heritage stretching back to Roman times, when the city's famous thermal springs were harnessed through sophisticated hydraulic engineering. The Georgian era saw pioneering construction techniques used to build the Royal Crescent and the Circus, whilst Isambard Kingdom Brunel routed his Great Western Railway through the city, building the elegant Bath Spa station and the nearby Box Tunnel in the 1840s. The city's Stothert and Pitt crane works, founded in 1855, became major manufacturers of dock cranes and heavy engineering equipment.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel left an indelible mark on Bath through his Great Western Railway, and the city celebrates his engineering legacy to this day. William Herschel, the astronomer who discovered Uranus in 1781, made his groundbreaking observations from his home in Bath, now preserved as the Herschel Museum of Astronomy. Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the astrophysicist who discovered pulsars, was dean of science at the University of Bath from 2001 to 2004, inspiring the next generation of scientists.

The University of Bath is internationally recognised for its engineering, computer science and materials research, consistently ranking among the UK's top institutions. The Ministry of Defence maintains a significant presence in the area, with MOD Abbey Wood near Bath employing thousands of engineers and project managers in defence procurement and systems engineering. Rotork, a market-leading global provider of flow control and valve actuator technology headquartered in Bath, exports advanced engineering products worldwide. The city's tech sector includes companies like Netcraft, which detects and disrupts online threats such as phishing and fraud.

Engineering and defence careers are strongly supported by MOD Abbey Wood, which offers graduate schemes, apprenticeships and industrial placements across systems engineering, project management and cybersecurity. The University of Bath's placement programme provides students with year-long industry experience at companies ranging from Rolls-Royce to Dyson. Rotork and other advanced manufacturing firms offer careers in mechanical engineering, electronic design and international operations. The growing digital sector provides pathways into software development, UX design and data analytics.