What is Chemical Engineering?

Imagine your future at the forefront of tomorrow's scientific and technological development, tackling some of the world's most urgent problems.

Visualise working as a Chemical Engineer, creating and developing processes to make the products that modern society depends on - foods and drinks, fuels, artificial fibres, pharmaceuticals, plastics and toiletries.

Think about how you, as a Chemical Engineer, would help to sustain our modern society - managing natural resources, recycling materials and protecting the environment.

These are just some of the aspects that make a career in Chemical Engineering an exciting world class profession.

What does a Chemical Engineer do?

Variety is the essence of a Chemical Engineering career: variety of product, variety of employment options and variety of location.

Chemical Engineering offers, both at home and abroad, a wide and changing range of employment options - from design, research and specialist engineering to manufacturing, marketing and management. It provides new and exciting opportunities for individual enterprise and career flexibility with rapid progress to responsible, financially rewarding jobs.

And, as Chemical Engineering's products are needed by everyone, everywhere, Chemical Engineers are in demand in the UK - and throughout the world.

Chemical Engineering is about large-scale chemical and biochemical processes in which materials undergo change. The role of the Chemical Engineer is to scale up the manufacture of the products from the laboratory bench to full production plants. Designing equipment, understanding the reactions taking place, installing computer control systems, starting up and running processes are all part of the job.

As a Chemical Engineer you will also have to make sure that these processes operate safely, efficiently and economically. You will modify old processes and devise new ones, generally using computer simulations to produce solutions to problems.