Why do the MPE?

Engineering Shortage

Forecasts by leading industry professionals predict that over the next 10 years more than $500 billion will be spent on infrastructure projects in Australia. Such projects, in areas like road, rail, electricity, water and telecommunications, are expected to require significant engineering resources.
According to the Carrick Report (2008), there is an expected shortfall of 20,000 professional engineers to meet current demand in Australia in the near future. Australian universities are currently graduating about 6,000 domestic engineers per year, which is inadequate for supporting the current needs and also future demand in engineering professions.
The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies at the University of Sydney is working to proactively address the engineering skills shortage. By attracting people from non-traditional backgrounds, the Conversion Masters Program will partially address this shortage.

According to the Graduate Careers Australia GradStats December 2007 survey, between 96-98% (depending on discipline) of engineering graduates were in full-time employment four months after graduating. The Good Universities Guide 2009 reports that 53% of engineering graduates are employed in private industry, with 26% working in private practice, and 13% in the public sector. In the face of significant skills shortages the current employment market outlook for engineering graduates is very positive.
Annual graduate surveys also confirm that graduate engineers attract good remuneration, having been ranked 4th on the median starting salary after dentistry, optometry and medicine for the past 5 years. The 2007 graduate engineer median starting salary of $50,000 was 25% higher than the corresponding figure for business and economics graduates. All engineering discipline areas reported higher full-time graduate employment rates (86.2% to 98.7%), compared with the higher education mean of 84.5%.