anyone who is , or who has a partner who is a mechanical engineer

[MadamArcatiAgain]

DS is at a uni which is very well regarded for engineering.He has completed the second year of a 4 yr Meng. The first 2 years are the same for all the 4 disciplines run by the school of Mech eng .DS is considering swapping to the specialist Aeronautical engineering degree.
My worry is that it might limit employment opportunities more than a straight mech eng degree.

My BFF is an aeronautical engineer. We are both in Australia but I'm sure jobs are similar. He started out doing work experience in uni holidays (some compulsory for the course and some voluntarily). He got his first job at a small company and then after a few years got a job with EADS. He focussed on a particular helicopter and now is the boss of his department with a different company that looks after the RAAF (Air Force) helicopters. It's nota huge industry but he has always found work.

I'm afraid that this is only half a story. Our MP gave a talk a while back in which he mentioned what are expected to be the four strongest sectors of our future economy. Due to my rotten memory I can't remember all four but one of them was definitely Aerospace (note: not some vague nod to engineering or manufacturing but specifically aerospace). Another was financial services, of course. Can't remember the other two, one of them may be in the film technology/computer games field?
According to wiki "The British aerospace industry is the second- or third-largest national aerospace industry depending on the method of measurement. The industry employs around 113,000 people directly and around 276,000 indirectly and has an annual turnover of around £20 billion."
wiki

The Week reports that "Aerospace is in a period of huge growth".

Aerospace is very popular with the Government - it is a great export earner. Google the paper in the House of Commons Library called The aerospace industry: statistics and policy ref SN/EP/00928. Or look at this strategy paper.

My DS has just finished a 4 year MEng in Aerospace Engineering. He had no relevant work experience (summer jobs were the casual bar work, production line stuff)
He started applying for Graduate Aerospace Engineering roles at Easter and has been offered a wonderful role in the Aerospace industry starting in September with an international Defence company.
It's a 2 year graduate programme in which he will get his Chartered Engineer status, then move on to Senior Engineer role,and he gets a golden handshake bonus as a sweetener
In fairness, it was a flippin' difficult degree, and he specialised in aerospace and aeronautics right from the first day.
But there were plenty of roles about, DS pulled out of several interviews when he was offered this role as it was the one he really wanted.