Students tested their skills at a careers show aimed at filling the national skills gap in the cyber industry.

The event put on at Barking and Dagenham College by the CyberHub Trust was aimed at inspiring them to look at the digital and cyber industry.

“These events bridge the gap between education and industry,” CyberHub’s chief executive Michael Klonowski explained. “Our mission is to ensure young people are aware of careers in cyber security.”

Staged at the college’s East London Institute of Technology campus, the event included IBM’s robotics sessions where students had to programme a robot to navigate an obstacle course with coding skills.

The activities were organised by IBM, BAE Systems and the Civil Aviation Authority while talks were given by the Met Police, National Crime Agency and the Department for Science and Technology about the need for cyber security.

Kenney Jones, a 17-year-old from Upminster, said: “Hearing about careers in cyber security opened my mind, while learning interactively was fantastic.”

Other activities included a laptop “bomb disposal” exercise in technology problem-solving, a “criminal minds” forensic challenge testing analytical abilities in real scenarios and an immersive headset Taser challenge to sharpen decision-making and risk assessment.