Thousands of students, no roles: Why NZ’s future engineers risk being lost

Saturday, 30 August 2025

If engineering student Shenal Herath can’t find an internship covering off the equivalent of 20 weeks of paid work experience, he cannot graduate.

And he’s not alone.

Alex ‒ a third-year University of Canterbury (UC) student ‒ knows of another who applied to 67 internships before getting an offer.

There was a consensus that finding mandatory paid work experience felt “unrealistic” in the current job market.

“It’s shit, it’s really bad. And this is everyone I talk to.”

Alongside academic course work, students studying an accredited engineering degree must complete 800 paid hours of relevant work experience — roughly four months of full-time work. The hours are typically completed during the summer break in a student's second and third year.

Students The Post spoke to said internships were difficult to secure and some were worried they would not graduate because they had not completed their practical hours.

“It's really hard to meet that 800 hours because imagine how many students are applying for so few jobs … you can't just walk in somewhere and be like, ‘I need an internship’,” said Alex, who didn’t want their last name used for fear of making it harder to secure work.

Many firms that had offered summer internships in previous years were hosting fewer, or even no interns, this year.

“Now everyone's applying to those ones and you're getting more than 200 applicants for one job – your CV might not even be looked at because [firms] just have to cut it down.”

Herath, a fourth-year mechatronics engineering student at UC, told The Post he still needed to complete half of his work experience hours. So far, he had heard nothing from any of the firms he had applied to and was starting to worry he might not graduate on time.

Many students were being forced to look further afield than the cities they were studying in to secure internships, Herath said, and he was doubtful there were enough positions available overall.

“A lot of companies maybe just have one or two positions available, whereas there’s many thousands of [engineering students].”

There were more than 9000 students specialising in engineering and related technologies at an honours or postgraduate diploma level in 2024, according to Ministry of Education data.

Third-year chemical and process engineering student James Passchier, who also studies at UC, said it seemed everyone was struggling.

He had not completed any of his practical hours so far.

“It seems to be if you don't apply to 60-plus places, you don't really have a chance of getting one.”

Passchier is already considering retraining as a teacher because “there’s more need for teachers than there are for most other jobs”.

A struggling sector

Engineering New Zealand chief executive Richard Templer told The Post many firms could not afford to hire student interns when they were having to let other staff go in what he described as a “tight fiscal environment”.

The industry had lost 1900 people in the past 18 months due to an economic downturn, he said.

“On one hand, a significant number of businesses are no longer operating … and on the other hand, you’ve had businesses which have survived [and] have been facing severe financial pressure, so in some cases have had to reduce the total number of staff.”

The downturn comes as industry representatives warn that New Zealand is facing a long-term engineering skills shortage.

An action plan released earlier this year by Engineering New Zealand, Waihanga Ara Rau (the Workforce Development Council), and the Association of Consulting and Engineering New Zealand (ACE NZ) found an additional 1500 to 2300 engineers were needed each year to meet industry demands and support economic growth.

But the report said students were struggling to find internships needed to develop practical experience and ensure work readiness. Once they graduated, they still faced challenges entering the industry.

Templer encouraged students to look at different options, such as volunteering at an engineering society or non-engineering roles, which could count towards a portion of their work experience hours.

Ruth McDavitt is the chief executive of Summer of Tech, a non-profit organisation helping students secure internships in the tech industry. She said internship opportunities had been trending downwards for the past three years after a small post-Covid lift.

She warned if engineering firms did not take on interns and graduates, they risked losing them.

“Everyone’s complaining about needing more senior talent, but if we are not growing our own then we have a big problem in terms of competent people coming through. I think we’re seeing a lot of our brightest moving overseas, for example, Australia.”

More options needed

Engineering New Zealand talks regularly with the deans of the university engineering programs about what they can do to support students.

Templer said his organisation had adjusted work experience requirements in the past if conditions had called for it, such as during Covid restrictions.

“As of yet, we haven’t had a request from the engineering deans to do that again, but that is something we would look at if this were to continue.”

Most of the engineering students The Post spoke to did not want work experience hours reduced - just more opportunities to complete the hours.

Many student engineering associations and clubs around the country are holding networking events to support their members into internships.

In the past year, UC’s Women in Tech Society has held mock interviews with recruiters, along with CV and LinkedIn workshops.

“Connection and networking is a very important part of getting an internship nowadays … when a student comes to one of our events, they have a chance to do that networking and be seen by the company they want to work for,” a spokesperson said.

Alex wanted universities to provide more opportunities to complete the work experience hours, such as research projects.

“The way you get skills is practical work … it's not sitting in a classroom and learning the theoretical stuff, it's actually going out there and doing the work – and that comes from internships.”