The UK’s largest annual gathering of engineering professionals, Advanced Engineering, will return to the NEC, Birmingham, on November 3 and 4, 2021. At the event, the UK’s talented and vast engineering industry can meet again for the first time in almost two years to do business, make new connections and discover innovation.
Over the last 12 years, Advanced Engineering has earned the support of some of the world’s key industry associations, such as The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Composites UK, Make UK, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, GAMBICA, BARA and the Department for International Trade. All of them now feature as trade body partners.
Advanced Engineering offers an excellent opportunity to meet suppliers, partners and generate business leads for the first time in over a year. The show’s exhibitor space is already 90% sold out – a sign that our industry is eager to come together again. In 2019, over 15,000 professionals from the manufacturing sector attended Advanced Engineering. 70% of visitors reported that they planned to place orders as a result of the relationships formed, and an impressive 93% of exhibitors said that they achieved their objectives at the show.
“As we are the voice of manufacturing, Advanced Engineering is a perfect fit for us,” explained Roxanne Bennett, Account Manager at Make UK. “Even though we are not making or exhibiting anything, we support those that do. One of the questions we get asked the most is how we can support manufacturers, and this show gives us the opportunity to answer that for companies across different sectors. One of the biggest challenges going forward is Brexit, and we get a lot of companies asking us what we can do to support manufacturers in the future. We also receive a lot of questions about apprenticeships. Exhibiting gives us a platform to showcase how membership to Make UK can help them get the support they need when facing these challenges.”
Advanced Engineering is the go-to show for anyone wanting to meet the world’s leading engineering companies, plus the UK’s most innovative start-ups, thanks to the return of the show’s Enabling Innovation zone, supported by Innovate UK. Here, ten chosen start-ups will have the opportunity to showcase their ground-breaking product or technology, before presenting it to a panel of esteemed judges for the chance of winning a stand at next year’s show.
This year, there will be new Space and Satellite zones, with a particularly special product feature due to be announced in the coming weeks. Also, for the first time, Advanced Engineering will be co-located with its sister show, Lab Innovations. This means that visitors can move between the two shows without even leaving the hall.
As always, Advanced Engineering will host four open forums with speakers from Make UK, BARA, Volkswagen, Ford, IBM, XI Engineering, Vortex Engineering Group and Swiss CMT already confirmed. Forum topics include urban air mobility, 3D printing of composites, electrification in the automotive industry and cybersecurity, cementing the show’s position as the home of everything that anyone working in engineering could need.
“Advanced Engineering UK marks the return to face-to-face business, which the UK has been craving since March 2020,” explained Alison Willis, Director at Easyfairs, the organiser of Advanced Engineering. “The show offers the UK’s engineering industry the chance to get together again, do business and discover the innovative technologies and products that have been created in the past year.”
Free tickets to attend Advanced Engineering 2021 on November 3–4 can be secured via the exhibition’s website.
