STEM Workshops in Inverness & the Highlands

The Scottish Highlands demanded engineering solutions on a large scale. Thomas Telford designed the Caledonian Canal, which runs sixty miles from Inverness to Fort William through the Great Glen, connecting the east and west coasts of Scotland. Construction began in 1803 and the canal opened in 1822, with 29 locks including Neptune's Staircase at Banavie, the longest staircase lock in Britain. Telford also designed over 900 miles of roads and more than 1,000 bridges across the Highlands, transforming the region's connectivity. The Highlands pioneered hydroelectric power in Britain, with the Foyers aluminium smelter on the shores of Loch Ness using hydroelectricity from 1896.

Alexander Bain, born in Watten, Caithness in 1810, invented the electric clock and patented the first fax machine in 1843, more than thirty years before the telephone was invented. The son of a crofter who was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Wick, Bain demonstrated that a background in the Highlands was no barrier to world-changing invention. Hugh Miller, born in Cromarty on the Black Isle in 1802, was a stonemason who became one of Scotland's most influential Victorian palaeontologists. His studies of Old Red Sandstone fossils and his book The Old Red Sandstone, published in 1841, made significant contributions to understanding Earth's geological history.

The Highlands are at the forefront of the UK's renewable energy sector. Onshore and offshore wind farms, including the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm in the Moray Firth, generate substantial clean energy capacity. SSE Renewables operates the region's extensive network of hydroelectric power stations. The Pentland Firth is one of the most promising tidal energy sites in Europe. Construction at Space Hub Sutherland has paused, and Orbex, which had switched its launch plans to SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland, entered administration and ceased operations on 18 February 2026. The University of the Highlands and Islands, with its administrative headquarters in Inverness, offers STEM degrees in engineering, computing, environmental science and forestry across its network of campuses. Nigg Energy Park on the Cromarty Firth provides fabrication and maintenance services for the offshore energy sector.

The renewable energy sector offers careers in wind turbine engineering, hydroelectric operations, electrical engineering and environmental monitoring, with SSE Renewables and other energy companies running apprenticeship programmes across the region. The whisky industry, rooted in applied chemistry and process engineering, provides roles in distillation, quality control, chemical analysis and automation at distilleries across the Highlands. The University of the Highlands and Islands offers degrees and HNC/HND courses in engineering, computing, environmental science and forestry from campuses including Inverness College. NHS Highland provides STEM careers in medical technology, laboratory science and clinical engineering at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.