UK Semiconductor Centre: Making Chip Careers Visible to Gen Z

Most young people use AI tools, smartphones, gaming platforms and social media every day. Few know what makes them work and fewer still know that designing the chips inside them could lead to a high-growth, well-paid career.

This is a key challenge for the UK Semiconductor Centre. The sector has increasing investment and political backing but will only achieve its potential with access to the right skills.

To support the UK Semiconductor Scholarship Scheme – a £4,000 per year bursary to encourage students to sign-up to chip-related degree courses at UK universities – we created a social-first campaign to make chip careers feel relevant, tangible and within reach.

Built around the message that AI runs on chips, the campaign linked semiconductors to the technology young people already care about, then showed them a clear route in through the bursary.

At the centre is a hero video featuring Jensen Huang, Kanishka Narayan – Minister for AI and Online Safety – and supporting voices from Arm and Salience Labs. Together, they gave the campaign enhanced industry credibility, founder perspective and practical next steps.

We cut the film into platform-native paid social for TikTok and Reddit, using short hooks, captions and direct calls to action. Influencer content helped translate the message into a more familiar voice, making a technical subject feel easier to understand and more credible in the feed.

Delivered from a standing start, the campaign has ensured the bursary is oversubscribed, generating more than 100 expressions of interest to date and thousands of clicks through to the landing page.