Engineering recruiters are facing a candidate crisis as students go for more ‘glamorous’ vocational courses such as media studies.

John Petersen, managing director of AndersElite, a technical and engineering recruitment company, is being forced to look to Australia and New Zealand for candidates and is even urging members of his family to reconsider a media career.

“If one of my relatives tells me that they want to do media studies, I tell them to think again,” said Petersen. “It’s a national problem; there are far too many people doing media courses.”

Petersen believes the government should take a hard-line approach. He said: “My answer would be to make universities reduce the number of vacancies for media studies and increase vacancies for engineering courses.”

Mark Tully, managing director of construction and engineering firm NES International, wants to spread the engineering message to the classroom. “There’s an issue with regard to getting across the attractiveness of engineering as a career,” he said.

“We’ve done a lot of work with colleges and universities and are considering schools as an avenue.”

A poll by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers revealed that 53% of engineers believe students shun engineering courses.