STEM Workshops in Darlington

The Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened on 27 September 1825, was the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives. On the opening day Locomotion No. 1, built at Robert Stephenson and Company in Newcastle, hauled the first train from collieries near Shildon through Darlington to Stockton. The railway's leading backer was the Quaker entrepreneur Edward Pease, who subscribed £7,000 towards it. Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, founded in Darlington in 1877, built the Victoria Falls Bridge and the Tees Transporter Bridge before closing in 2021 after 144 years. In 2008 the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust completed Tornado, the first main line steam locomotive built in the UK since 1960.

Alfred Kitching (1808 to 1882), a Quaker, established the Hope Town Foundry in Darlington in 1832 with his father William, and in 1845 the Kitchings built the locomotive Derwent to a design by Timothy Hackworth; Derwent survives and has been on display at Darlington's North Road Station museum since 1975. The Kitching business later moved to Whessoe Foundry in Darlington, and Whessoe went on to design and build reactor vessels for nuclear power stations including Calder Hall, Hunterston B and Hinkley B. John Kenworthy (1883 to 1940), who was living in Darlington aged 17 at the 1901 census, became chief designer at the Royal Aircraft Factory during the First World War, producing the F.E.8 fighter and the R.E.8 reconnaissance aircraft, was chief draughtsman on the team that designed the S.E.5 scout, and later founded Redwing Aircraft.

Darlington Economic Campus, set up after the 2021 spring budget and based at Feethams House, brings together civil servants from nine government departments, including HM Treasury, the Department for Education and the Office for National Statistics; it reached 1,000 recruits in autumn 2024, more than 80 per cent of them recruited locally. At Hopetown Darlington, beside North Road Station, one of the world's oldest railway buildings, visitors can watch A1 Steam Locomotive Trust volunteers building a new steam locomotive, Prince of Wales. Darlington College teaches engineering, digital and information technology and T Levels, and in 2026 the developer Cityheart submitted a planning application for a STEM Centre at Darlington Science Park.

Darlington College offers engineering, digital and T Level routes locally, with apprenticeship vacancies advertised on its site, and its partnership with Teesside University brings higher education courses to the town. The Darlington Economic Campus, where the Office for National Statistics employs analysts, offers a route into government data and economic analysis, and more than 80 per cent of its first 1,000 recruits came from the local area. Together they let a Darlington pupil move from a college workshop to a national career without relocating.