'Forget Bob the Builder, what about Hettie the Highway Engineer'

Narrowing the aspirations gap in young people

Hi everyone! This week I want to have a little ramble about kids, and the world of work. In my previous newsletter I talked briefly about the long winded path I went on to find my illustration career. I mentioned how even though I was drawing constantly, and loved writing stories, I never considered illustration a viable route. Despite all my career talks pointing me in the direction of doing a design related subject, I actually went to uni and studied biology. Which, by the end of the 4th year, I was very aware it was not for me, and took some college courses to retrain as a designer.

Do you remember your career talks at school? Were they helpful? Did you end up having a job in the subject area you liked at school? I think this is such an interesting subject, especially as someone that has come full circle and am now doing a job in the area that I most loved at school, rather than an area I believed I would find work.

One of my first jobs as a designer was with a design agency in Manchester that worked with pharmaceutical companies on their sales pitches to hospitals and doctors. They couldn’t believe their luck to find a designer with a science degree that had a vague understanding of the graphs and complicated data they needed to communicate. And when I started, I realised a lot of the project managers and copy writers all had the same degree as me. I was so shocked to see all the different jobs you could have with a biology degree beside ‘scientist’ and ‘science teacher’. And that you could work somewhere awesome like a digital agency! Even at university I feel like the vast, incredible, exciting world of work was not really opened up to me. What do we do about this? How can we make this world visible to kids at an age where it can be really useful to them? Particularly kids that might look at potential jobs and see no one that looks like them, or no one with their background.

See It Be It is a fantastic organisation that is tackling this very issue. There is an aspirations gap in young people because of the pandemic, but even before this, there was a correlation between low aspiration and socioeconomic background. Did you know that there is little change in aspirations between the ages of 7 and 17? See It Be It are professional content creators working with industry professionals to bring quality, engaging videos to schools that connect education and employment, raise aspirations and narrow the skills and diversity gap.

This is Hettie. It was such a joy to create this illustration for the team at See it Be It, after Anna, one fo the founders, spoke on the panel for a recent Highways UK event. Anna was asked to talk about how to attract a young workforce and was asked 'what is one thing the industry can do to move the dial now?'

In Anna’s words: “Having walked around the event for two days and been blown away by the innovation and passion that the industry has in bucket loads, my answer was 'be proud of your industry and share your story as much as you can, talk about the amazing things you do and the innovation within your sector'.

But perhaps that wasn't as practical as it could have been. So I decided to give the Highways industry a gift... With the talented Jennifer Jamieson we created the embodiment of everything I absorbed from the event...

Introducing...Hettie the Highway Engineer!!! and her Robo dog who helps her with all the innovative things that were demonstrated at the event. To the highways Industry...Through Hettie, you can communicate your story right into the hearts and minds of the innovators of tomorrow. But how will you tell your story through her? A book? A campaign? I have my own ideas but I would love to hear yours...below

So what is HER story? Who is in her team? How does she help the world stay connected, stay fed, stay sustainable, stay educated, stay safe...”

Please make sure you take a look at what See It Be It are doing, this is a mission that should be close to all our hearts if we want to see a future where every child feels open to possibility, regardless of gender, ethnicity, neurodiversity, disability, or socioeconomic background.

Thanks to See It Be It for allowing me to share their info in this piece.