A lot of engineering students are dreaming of working at companies in the aerospace and defense industry, such as Lockheed Martin.
Universum, an employer branding agency, publishes a list of where students wish to work. Students from different universities were asked to "choose the five employers you most want to work for," or what the agency considers their "ideal employers." The survey period for the US survey was from September 2022 to March 2023, which included this question and others.
According to this year's results, 20.6% of engineering students said Lockheed Martin is one of the places they most want to work for. With the highest share of students saying that, that put the employer at the No. 1 spot for the engineering ranking. It moved up three spots, after 17.4% of engineering students chose it as an ideal employer for themselves last year.
According to how Universum classified employers, three places in the aerospace and defense industry ranked as the top three this year, based on the share of engineering students who named it as a place they most want to work for.
Apple, General Motors, Toyota, and the Department of Defense were all part of this year's top 20 and all didn't move from their rank last year. Meanwhile, some companies did move down while others moved up. Among the top 20, Mercedes-Benz Group moved up the most, soaring from No. 44 to No. 20. Roughly 5% of engineering students view it as one of their ideal employers.
Below are the top 20 on the engineering student list. We included below the industries for each employer, as noted by Universum. The percentages below are of the share of engineering students who named that employer as an one of their ideal places to work.