• Question: what age do you have to be to be an engineer and if you are getting old can you still be an engineer

    Asked by sammy2008 on 24 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Eleanor Sherwen

      Eleanor Sherwen answered on 24 Nov 2017:

      You have to be at least 16 to start an engineering apprenticeship. Most commonly I meet engineers who started work at 21 when they left University. The oldest working engineer I know is in his late 60s. Engineers build up really good experience over their lives, and the job isn’t physically difficult, so you can do it at any age as long as your brain is in decent working order. So I know quite a few engineers who have “retired” but then still give advice for 2 days a week or something like that, because they still enjoy it.

      You can retrain as an engineer later in life as a career change, it’s likely to take 3-4 years.

    • Photo: Emma Grayshon

      Emma Grayshon answered on 24 Nov 2017:

      Just to add to Eleanor’s excellent answer, I tutor on the Open University in engineering and I have a range of students, a lot of whom don’t work in engineering and are retraining……the oldest was 65!

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