A banking job? There's still lots of interest Official figures show that foreign students take up a larger share of places on science, maths and engineering degree courses than other subjects. Bosch, the engineering group which carried out the study of 1,347 workers aged 18-45, said perceptions of engineering had to change to rebalance the economy away from financial services towards exporting and advanced manufacturing. Peter Fouquet, the UK president of Bosch, said: "It is likely, if not certain, that a significant proportion of the country's economic growth in the coming years will be from sectors such as low carbon technology. Rather than relying too heavily on financial services, the economy will have to be far more reliant on the manufacturing and engineering sectors. Statistics last year showed that there were 157,000 engineering and technology students, six per cent of the student population. Just 45 per cent of respondents to the survey thought engineering was key to growth, compared with 61 per cent who thought banking was vital. This is despite the engineering sector making up 19.6 per cent of gross domestic product.