Is this the future or a hotch potch degree? AI engineering

[GreenSalon2]

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/2025/artificial-intelligence/beng-artificial-intelligence/

DC has an offer for this brand new course. He’s interested in it and went to the offers holders day recently but had more questions than answers after like why would a graduate of this degree be more employable than a computer science engineer. No real answers forthcoming and I work in a creative field and know nothing about stem. He wanted to go on his own so we have zero information though DH did go to initial open day.

His other options are mechanical engineering with Sheffield the front runner but the degree above was a curve ball. Any thoughts from anyone with knowledge in either field would be very welcome!

The Finance sector employs engineers for their maths, logic and problem solving skills, not their engineering accreditation. An AI degree will demonstrate these skills in spades. Also, use of AI is applicable to every sector, including Finance So, while it is a specialised degree, it is specialising in something very employable.

How much does Mech Eng cover AI at the place he might do it?

There was wide mis- reporting of this 2023 Government report into the impact of AI on the UK job sector: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-impact-of-ai-on-uk-jobs-and-training
Some coverage presented "impact" as a negative. However the the report makes no distinction between positive and negative impacts. Some sectors will be transformed by AI, but that's exactly why they will need AI specialists. Many people will need to be re-trained to use AI technologies. That is why the government have been investing in relevant skills training.

You won't find much info on AI careers because they have only really started to exist in the last few years. However, there will definitely be a market for them and if will be a broad career pathway which will allow him to move into lots of different specialisms. Basically pretty much every industry will need ai engineers in the next 5 years. Ai is already starting to be implemented in lab research in biology, in the NHS, in business development, in drug development for chemistry, etc etc there are limitless ways it can be used and training in it will definitely put him ahead in terms of employability for pretty much any graduate career.

There's some .gov.uk info on AI careers here, but as the pp said, it is rapidly evolving: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/artificial-intelligence-ai-engineer

Your DS has at least two great options, OP.

Historically I’ve been wary of degrees like the AI Eng degree but I think it really comes down to a question of taste. The Data Science degree is somewhat similar and I hesitated over that, but it is proving very successful.

I think the AI Eng degree is very likely to lead to good employment and to be pretty interesting as well. The Maths is likely to be in concentrated (relative to high school Maths) in the areas of Statistics and Decision Maths. In a course like this that is pulled together from different historical disciplines, there may be less of a sense of getting to grips with first principles. Some students may find this problematic (I would have) but most will not.

We don’t have a sense yet of what the advanced training and the career path will look like, but getting into the field early is likely to create good opportunities.

I trust Bristol to develop a high quality programme.

If DS loves Physics and the Maths associated to it, he may well prefer Mech Eng. As @TizerorFizz (and possibly other PP) has said, Sheffield is tops. The degree will never go out of style and the career path is proven.

If DS listens to his intuition I think one of these will seem more appealing than the other. That is the programme he will engage most fully with, and wholehearted engagement is the key to his best future.

He is in the fortunate position where doing exactly what he wants is the best option. Congratulation to the lucky guy.

AI Engineering is a bit of a hotch-potch of a degree. It is better to do proper engineering degree and, if necessary, follow this up with an AI qualification.

Those hired into AI research areas (e.g., drug discovery) have relevant undergraduate degrees followed by an MSc or PhDs in AI in the specialised area.

I agree with @Sapienza ’s last paragraph. But I think she is talking about people in specialist roles.

The growth we’re already seeing in AI, with greatly increased growth predicted, likely means that training will be compressed to fulfil national needs. Indeed, I think PP was correct to link Bristol’s new programme to their participation in the new consortium.

Again I see a parallel with the new-ish UG Data Science degree created in response to need. In theory a mathematician, statistician or computer scientist with a UG degree could be trained by the employer to fulfil a graduate role. But British companies aren’t keen on relatively sophisticated training and the universities created the Data Science degree. Now a Data Science graduate generally has an advantage over other graduates because they don’t require (much) training (for entry roles). I think the same thing will happen in AI.

Quite a lot of employees join apprenticeships for masters. It’s not true to say employers don’t train career changers or enhance qualifications.

Blimey - another person echoing the OP's "hotch potch" phrase. Very odd. I can understand why someone without a STEM background might misconstrue this, but nobody else should. Is it because you think it is a mixture of AI and Engineering? It isn't. An AI Engineer is someone who engineers (i.e. designs/builds) new AI tools or designs/builds things using AI. It is a relatively new job role, for obvious reasons.

There was a time when people didn't know what a "Computer Scientist" was too.

They have done, but the new Government is pulling investment from level 7 apprenticeships and refocussing it on entry levels.

https://feweek.co.uk/shorter-apprenticeships-and-level-7-restrictions-confirmed-by-starmer/

I didn’t mean to imply ‘never’, @TizerorFizz

I think relatively few offer these programmes to relatively small numbers.

When DF was starting as a Mechanical Engineer use of computers was relatively new and he was able to train in a couple of programming languages on the job ‘from scratch’ , as Mechanical Engineers knew nothing about programming. Nowadays I don’t think anyone who lacked basic programming skills could be hired as an ME. It is taught at uni. Similar situation I think

Interesting, I was just reading our company's latest AI newsletter (I work in media, where everyone is scrabbling to make use of AI - without losing creative jobs!), and I think if your son is interested in the future of AI, it's definitely the place to be at the moment, and so a fantastic degree choice! Every single sector in the world is looking at how to harness AI into their workflows, he will be enormously employable, even if he pivots slightly.

There are umpteen masters AI degrees. I accept apprenticeships for employees might be waning but I guess unemployment of young people is a priority to tackle?

Sheffield does AI masters and engineering grads can apply.

@windiwetha, you clearly have little or no understanding of the discipline.

Those who are hired for AI roles generally have advanced degrees in AI and are often highly-talented mathematicians, economists and scientists with undergraduate degrees from universities such as Oxford or Cambridge. There are relatively few entry-level roles in AI engineering.

AI engineering has little relevance to the many basic roles using AI applications.

You are talking about the pioneers in the AI space, rather than the future workforce, which will come from a much wider background than just Oxbridge postgrads.

The OP's son is a talented mathematician and, with enthusiasm and a relevant degree there will be jobs for him. He may find he needs a Masters-level qualification to get the job he wants, but that would be the case whatever degree he does.

Based on the second paragraph alone I would advise against doing this degree. It's nothing but computer science courses with an AI bent. There is nothing about the hardware at all in the course catalogue. It's a specialised computer science degree with the usual naming problem that as an industry we use the words such as computer science, software engineering, software development, solution architecture to refer to what seem like different things to us but would be considered the same to most lay people.

@WannabeMathematician It’s not in the CS faculty so it’s emphatically not CS. They offer CS and AI that is in the CS faculty. I’ve no idea why this is the case if it’s CS. Doesn’t make much sense.

OP I really think the question is whether he wants to do this, or whether he wants to be a mechanical engineer. They're very different courses. I don't think employability is an issue with either, but I do think he will find it harder to pivot from this to mech eng if he changes his mind than vv. He should look at AI masters courses and see if an mech eng bachelor's (if he chooses to only do three years) would qualify him for entry. The most important thing for him at this stage is a course he will enjoy and get invested in for the time yes studying it.

Sidenote: why do people keep talking about AI as if it's a new thing? That's the only part that would worry me about doing this course - it's a niche part of computer science but it's the current 'thing' because of the attention generative AI is getting. Is he genuinely interested in AI, or is he swayed by everyone talking about AI being the future?

@windiwetha, you clearly do not understand the discipline.

Many entry-level roles will be replaced by AI. Teams of graphic designers, website developers, copywriters, administrators, etc. will be replaced by one or two skilled people adept in the use of AI tools such as graphic designers with knowledge of AI image and video generation tools, marketing specialists familiar with social media AI, business specialists skilled in productivity tools, etc. An AI engineering degree is as relevant for these roles as a computer science degree is required when hiring an administrator experienced in the use of Microsoft Office.

Demand for entry level software developers will also decrease as teams of entry-level coders will also be replaced by one or two experienced software developers skilled in the use of AI. The experienced software developers will likely need a very solid grounding in software engineering, skills not included in the AI engineering programme.

Highly-paid roles in AI will exist, but these will be for highly specialised economists, mechanical engineers, electronic engineers, biomedical scientists, etc., with a background in postgraduate AI research in the application area.

Aggressive.

Have you told the Government your opinion and asked them why they have been investing in AI conversion courses? And will you be writing to non-Oxbridge universities with Engineering Maths departments to advise them not to recruit students? You clearly have your own vision of the future. Shall I see you back here in 10 years years time so we can look at the employability of AI grads with the benefit of hindsight?

I mean the department that’s offering it doesn’t matter to me. The topics are computer science based/discrete maths courses, so if the kid doesn’t like that sort of stuff he’s going to have a bad time.

I'm not technical enough to pick up the details, but I actually think this is more focused on practical applications of ML (for which you need to understand how ML works) than being the computer science side. Certainly the maths looks a lot more limited than the computer science with ai bsc (and the maths Alevel entry requirements is A not A star). I think it's closer to data science than computer science (which would make sense).

That might be what the OP's son is looking to do, but he needs to get into the detail.

@windiwetha, you seem to be equally clueless on UK government strategy.