The degree courses range across very broad and differentiated specialist areas, from the more consolidated construction and environmental sectors, to telecommunications, industrial applications and information technologies.
The cure of LABITALIA
The growth trend in the number of new engineering graduates in Italy continues, both first level and master’s degrees. In 2023, compared to the previous year, the increase was 4.3% while in the last decade the growth was almost 49%. Studies and degrees in engineering attract the younger generations considerably, so much so that for years, together with studies in economics, they have constituted the largest share of graduates (15.5%) compared to the total. Favorable market conditions, with a decidedly greater demand for technical figures than supply, in addition to the ability of engineering degree courses to provide knowledge that can be immediately used on the market, have significantly contributed to increasing the number of students enrolled and graduates. Furthermore, the fact that engineering degree courses range across very broad and differentiated specialist fields, from the more consolidated construction and environmental sectors, to telecommunications, industrial applications and information technologies, plays a favorable role in this expansive context. . This is what emerges from a recent analysis conducted by the Cni Study Center.
In 2023, almost 26,700 people obtained a master’s degree in engineering from Italian universities, one of the highest values ever: just think that 10 years earlier, in 2013, there were 16,380 graduates and in 2010 there were 13,536. The number of first-level graduates is also constantly growing, equal to just over 30,000 units in 2023, although it must be said that more than 80% of those who reach this first milestone immediately continue on to obtain a master’s degree. However, a significant change is underway, namely the constant growth of those enrolling and graduating in engineering courses related to both the industrial and information sectors, compared to an overall slowdown in graduates in the civil-construction and environmental and territorial engineering sectors. In particular, for the second consecutive year, in 2023 the master’s degree program with the highest number of graduates was management engineering, just as graduates in biomedical engineering continue to make significant leaps forward, increasing in just one year by almost 22% (in 2023, 2,103 people graduated in this field) and the number of graduates in mechanical engineering remains very consistent and increasing, with an average of 3,500 master’s degrees per year in recent years. The part of engineering related to construction systems continues to give good numbers, but with a progressively decreasing trend.
To give an idea, in 2023 there were 1,755 graduates in civil engineering, and 1,876 in the single cycle of Architecture and Civil Engineering-Architecture, a total decrease of 7.8% compared to 2022. It must also be said that at this time also for civil engineers the market shows a decidedly greater demand than supply and one wonders whether this will encourage a recovery in enrollments in these degree courses. It is however undeniable that they are overtaking graduates in courses that we could define as new, so much so that the CNI Study Center predicts that in the space of 2 years the largest share of graduates will be represented by management and biomedical graduates overall. One fact makes everyone think, namely the fact that in the last 4 years the share of master’s graduates in civil and environmental engineering, on the total number of engineering graduates, has gone from 28.8% to 18.6%, now surpassed by the share of master’s graduates in industrial engineering who represent 32.1% of the total engineering graduates in 2023. The overtaking of master’s engineers in information technology also appears very close, having collected 18.2% of graduates in 2023. The analysis would not be complete if an important phenomenon were not considered, namely the considerable increase in the number of women engineering graduates.
Although they still represent a minority, there has been a considerable leap forward in the last decade. In 2013, female master’s degree graduates in engineering represented 26.3% of the total compared to the current 30%. Although the number of female master’s degree graduates is constantly increasing, these increases are limited and with a marked inequality between the different specializations. In fact, while the share of women coming from the Industrial Engineering courses is still few, in the Biomedical Engineering and Architecture and Building Engineering-Architecture courses, in 2023, they represented the absolute majority, while in Chemical Engineering, Building Systems Engineering and Environmental and Land Engineering they exceeded 45% of graduates. “The latest data from our Study Center – says Angelo Domenico Perrini, president of the National Council of Engineers – outline a constantly evolving engineering sector.
The presence of management engineers, biomedical engineers and mechanical engineers is growing significantly and, in a few years, they will assume a very significant weight among the workforce in our sector. Fortunately, the share of women with degrees in Engineering is also increasing. These are the signs of a labor and skills market that is changing rapidly, with accelerated rhythms dictated, in our case, by technological transformation. The Cni has the ambition to grasp, monitor, understand and also represent these complex phenomena that have strong implications not only on the work of engineers but in many aspects of our daily lives. Knowing and representing these changes, but above all being the link between the engineer and the end user in compliance with the rules, in such different fields, is a goal that the Cni has set itself”. “These latest data on graduates – says Marco Ghionna, president of the Cni Study Center – unequivocally put us in front of a phase of almost radical transformation of the engineering sector with the overtaking of expert technicians in fields that until not long ago were the prerogative of a few hundred experts. Management engineering, information engineering, with its many declinations, biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering are today the choice of study of many young people and mark a sort of caesura between today and tomorrow”.
“The future – he claims – very close to us, will see a rapid development of engineering branches that we could define as relatively new. The professional system should question itself and ask itself how to develop a capacity for dialogue with the new generations of engineers. Ask itself what the needs and expectations of these professionals are and how to counter the now well-known phenomenon whereby a significant number of graduates are qualified to practice the profession, while a very small number of them register with the professional register”. In general, two considerations arise from reading the data. The first is related to civil and environmental engineering. The fact that a decreasing number of young people decide to undertake studies in these fields does not indicate a decline in the sector, given that, as we have seen, even in this sector there is a very marked gap between (high) demand and (insufficient) supply of specialized technical figures, highly sought after also thanks to expansionary policies financed by bonuses for construction and the Pnrr. At the same time, civil engineering must not and cannot appear as an obsolescent field from the point of view of innovative capacity and, for this reason, unattractive compared to other branches of engineering. Civil engineering is subjected, both in the academic and private sectors, to a constant process of experimentation, especially on materials, construction and repair techniques and in these it reveals great competitive capacity.
The second aspect instead poses many questions but also many challenges to the order system, to its ability to represent interests and its ability to communicate with the multiple institutional actors that govern the innovation processes. The emergence, in the engineering sector, of profiles that until a few years ago numbered a few hundred professionals and which today number thousands, rapidly accelerating, as in the case of biomedical and clinical engineers and management engineers, is evident. not to mention computer engineers. This means that each specialist area of engineering has and will have even more in the coming years its own needs and interests to assert. All this poses some questions and challenges to the CNI today, requiring it to speak new languages that are sufficiently attractive for the new generations.
