Hello there, I’m a 3rd year Chem Eng student at Manchester so I’ll try me best to answer this.
With regards to relevancy, Chem Eng, in my opinion is perhaps one of the most widely applicable degrees out there. Because of this, it will always remain relevant.
With a Chem Eng degree you can go into oil and gas/ pharmaceuticals/ supply chain management/ investment banking/ financial and engineering consultancy and yes even some technology companies take on chemical engineers. This is all solely because of the large amount of transferable skills you obtain.
For me personally, I’ve decided to persue investment banking. But that’s the exciting thing about this degree, you can do so much with it.
Jobs in engineering are difficult to secure but this is the same with any engineering discipline. Most degrees offer placement years too making it easier to secure a grad role (plenty of my friends do). Obviously applying to summer internships will help too.
With regards to the future I don’t see a decline in the amount of chemical engineers required, quite the opposite. There are big big issues that need to tackled ranging from sustainability of processes to product and process innovation. With this shift towards green energy, it will be chemical engineers, among others too, that will help aid this global transition.
Hope this helps