STEM Workshops in Windsor & Maidenhead

Berkshire's contribution to engineering runs directly through this stretch of the Thames. In 1838 Isambard Kingdom Brunel completed the Maidenhead Railway Bridge for the Great Western Railway: its two brick arches, each spanning 128 feet with a rise of only 24 feet, were the widest and flattest in the world at the time, and their stability was doubted until they survived a flood in 1839 that swept away their wooden supports. The bridge still carries the line today and was upgraded to Grade I listed status in 2012. West of Maidenhead, White Waltham Airfield opened in 1928 as the de Havilland Flying School, was home to 13 Elementary Flying Training School and then to the Air Transport Auxiliary from 1940 to 1945, before Fairey Aviation and Westland Helicopters used it to test experimental rotorcraft after the war.

Sydney Camm was born in Windsor in 1893 and, as chief designer at Hawker Aircraft from 1925, created 52 aircraft types including the Hawker Hurricane, the Typhoon and the postwar Hunter jet fighter; at one point in the 1930s, 84 per cent of RAF aircraft were his designs. Daniel Gooch, recruited by Brunel as the Great Western Railway's first Superintendent of Locomotive Engines, lived at Clewer Park in Windsor from 1859 and later led the laying of the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable using the SS Great Eastern. The astronomer William Lassell, who discovered Neptune's moon Triton in 1846, spent his final years in Maidenhead, where he operated his 24-inch telescope in an observatory and died in 1880.

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, has its registered headquarters at Millstream on Maidenhead Road in Windsor. In March 2024 Ultra Intelligence & Communications opened a 56,000 square foot Cyber Centre of Excellence in Maidenhead, a £30 million investment providing a base for 250 engineers working on secure communications and post-quantum security, and hosting placements from the CyberFirst programme. The Berkshire College of Agriculture, on the edge of Maidenhead at Burchetts Green, opened a dedicated electric and hybrid vehicle training centre in 2022 alongside its motor vehicle department. Royal Holloway, University of London, five miles from Windsor in Egham, teaches computer science degrees.

The Windsor Forest Colleges Group runs Windsor College and, at Burchetts Green near Maidenhead, the Berkshire College of Agriculture with its motor vehicle department and electric and hybrid vehicle training centre. Royal Holloway, University of London, five miles away in Egham, teaches computer science degrees. Employers add further routes: Ultra Intelligence & Communications supports local schools and hosts CyberFirst placements at its Maidenhead cyber centre, while Centrica, headquartered in Windsor, offers graduate training programmes and apprenticeships. The University of Reading, a little further west, adds degree routes in engineering and computer science for pupils staying local.