The Big Bang Fair

The Big Bang Fair offers a dynamic mix of hands-on workshops, engaging activities, and exciting live shows. Young people are given the unique opportunity to meet real STEM professionals, asking questions to discover what it’s like to work in these fields. Ultimately, the event aims to ensure students leave informed and inspired about how a future career in engineering and technology could be for them.

This free event takes place each year in June at the NEC, Birmingham. It’s open exclusively to UK state-funded school groups, specifically welcoming students in year 6 to year 8 in England and Wales, P7 to S2 in Scotland, and year 7 to year 9 in Northern Ireland.

Schools can choose to attend either a morning session, running from 9am to 12pm, or an afternoon session, from 1pm to 4pm. To keep the experience engaging and interactive, group sizes are limited to 100 people.

The essential skills icons are used consistently as visual content at The Fair, as well as in inspiring conversations led by volunteers and exhibitors with young people. This is clearly seen during hands-on activities, including the STEM Chatterbox and the 3 activities that form the Discover Your Skills area on the show floor.

In addition to this, volunteers and exhibitors hand out stickers as a fun and rewarding recognition of skills awareness and reflection. They also award them whenever active skills building is observed.

This approach boosts young people's recognition of their own abilities. It also helps to highlight and celebrate the importance of essential skills as a critical component of a future STEM career. Most importantly, it shows young people that the skills they already have are exactly what is needed and in high demand for a career in STEM.