A poll of a cross-section of UK residents found more people would encourage a young person to become an engineer than a doctor, accountant or banker. A new Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ poll of a representative cross-section of 1,000 members of the public found that 86% would encourage a young person to become an engineer.

Two promising Engineering students at Walsall College are using their passion and talents to launch their own commercial enterprise creating 3D products for businesses. Level 2 students, Ashley Mullen and Artjoms Semjonovs, both aged 17, have joined forces to set up their own company, ReSpace, and are being supported by the college to develop their business and enterprise skills alongside their course.

As part of the delivery of a two year Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project, a team from West Midlands based housing association, the Accord Group, has been helping communities across Europe to have a say on everything from redesigning public squares to developing revitalisation strategies for towns and districts.

Earlier this month, the British Chambers of Commerce published the first part of its Business and Education Survey 2015. The Survey results for the Black Country, completed by 107 education providers and businesses, reveal that 87% of business and 100% of school leaders agree that secondary schools should offer work experience to under 16s.

A campaign targeting areas of high unemployment helped almost 450 unemployed Birmingham residents into work at the city's spectacular Grand Central development.The £150 million shopping centre opened to great fanfare last month, creating 1,000 new full-time jobs and figures released today show that many of those jobs went to people from Birmingham's high unemployment priority wards*.

The success of young people going on to forge independent lives for themselves has been celebrated during National Care Leavers Week – at the same time as a new project was launched in Wolverhampton to improve the transition process.