National Workforce Development Month: Building the Engineering Workforce Through ACEC’s Pipeline Project
September is National Workforce Development Month. The recognition of this is to highlight how workforce programs help job seekers build skills and assist business in developing vital talent pipelines. For most industries that’s a nice-to-know. For engineering, it’s a chance to shine the light on one of our most important industry-wide initiatives – workforce development.
Here’s the math: in 2022, about 184,000 engineers retired or left the profession. Only 166,000 new graduates came in behind them. That’s a net shortage of 18,000 engineers a year — and, per the ACEC Research Institute’s Workforce Study: Engineering’s Talent Pipeline and Future Demand this is not a one-year blip, it’s a trend line. The gap starts early, in how few students even consider engineering, and it just compounds through college and into the workforce.
This is exactly why ACEC created The Pipeline Project; it is built to address the pipeline with our members. Starting in 2026, ACEC partnered with the ACE Mentor Program of America, a well-established program that pairs students with real engineering professionals, to bring that mentorship model into every state and region where ACEC members operate. The goal isn’t awareness for awareness’s sake. It’s a pipeline: get students in front of the profession early and keep them in it.
The program already has real reach. ACE puts 14,000+ students in front of the industry every year, backed by 5,000+ volunteers across 70+ affiliates nationwide. More than 1,000 ACE alumni go on to join the AEC industry annually. The infrastructure to close this gap already exists and needs more engineering firms to embrace mentoring as way to move the needle.
That’s where engineering firms come in. A few concrete ways to get involved:
- Mentor students directly
- Offer internships
- Provide scholarships or sponsorships
- Host site visits
- Serve on an ACE board or advisory committee
- Help launch a new ACE chapter in an area that doesn’t have one yet
None of these require a huge lift from any one firm. But multiplied across ACEC’s membership, they’re the difference between a shrinking pipeline and a sustainable one.
National Workforce Development Month is a good moment to say it plainly: the demand for engineers isn’t the problem right now — the supply is. The ACE Mentor Program partnership gives ACEC members a real, ready-made way to do something about it, instead of just talking about it.
