Shape your aerospace future

Maths is already on your timetable, so this one is less about choosing it and more about what you do with it. The industry runs on it. Engineers use maths to work out the forces on a wing, the fuel an aircraft needs and the loads a structure can safely carry. Satellite teams use it to plan orbits. Pilots use it for navigation and flight planning, and analysts use it to find patterns in everything from engine data to passenger numbers.

For technical routes, maths is the subject that keeps the most options open. Engineering degrees usually ask for A level Maths, and A level Maths is far more manageable with a strong GCSE grade behind it. Engineering apprenticeships typically ask for at least a grade 4, and higher grades help applications stand out.

If you enjoy maths, aerospace gives it a purpose: a paper dart and a Mars lander obey the same rules. If you find it a struggle, don’t rule the industry out. Aim for the best grade you can and keep going: plenty of roles need solid maths rather than spectacular maths.

Physics explains the things this industry is built on: why wings generate lift, how jet engines and rockets produce thrust, why some materials survive extreme heat and others would not. At GCSE you’ll cover forces, energy, electricity, waves and materials, and every one of those topics reappears in aerospace, from radar to landing gear.

Most students take science as combined science or as three separate GCSEs. If separate sciences are an option at your school and you’re thinking about engineering, triple science gives you more physics before sixth form. Combined science can still lead to A level Physics at most colleges, but entry requirements vary, so check what yours asks for.

Looking further ahead, aerospace and aeronautical engineering degrees usually want A level Physics alongside Maths, and engineering apprenticeships value it highly. If you like knowing how things actually work, not just that they work, physics is the subject to take seriously.

Design and Technology is the closest school gets to how aircraft and spacecraft are actually made. You take an idea, design it, build it, test it, find out what’s wrong with it and improve it. That cycle of designing, prototyping and refining is exactly how the industry works, whether the product is a cabin seat or a satellite bracket.

Along the way you learn skills the industry uses daily: CAD (computer-aided design) software, materials and their properties, and manufacturing techniques. You also finish with something concrete to show. Coursework projects make good evidence when you apply for engineering courses or apprenticeships and get asked what you’ve made.

D&T is an option subject, so availability depends on your school. If you can take it and you like making things as much as studying them, it pairs well with maths and physics, and it leads naturally towards design, manufacturing and technician routes.

Modern aerospace depends on software. Flight control systems, navigation, satellite operations, air traffic management and the simulators pilots train in all run on code, and drones and autonomous aircraft are pushing that further still. Computer Science teaches you how that code works: programming, algorithms and how to break a big problem into steps a computer can solve.

The industry needs people who can write and test software to the same standard it builds engines, because in the air, software failures matter. That opens routes into software engineering, simulation, robotics and avionics, as well as the growing field of cyber security that keeps aircraft and airports protected.

Computer Science is an option subject where schools offer it. You don’t have to take it at GCSE to work in aerospace software later, but it’s the best early test of whether you enjoy programming, and enjoying it matters more than anything else at this stage.