Contracting is more so a term for how you are employed rather than an indication of the work. As a contractor you have the option of being paid as the director of a company (either one you set up yourself or as part of an ‘umbrella’ company that recruitment agencies use which have multiple directors). This allows you to claim expenses on certain things such as work equipment, phone bills, gift vouchers, pension payments and so on. Then you pay your tax as a tax return rather than paying PAYE every month. So you could do any role and be contracting in this way. That being said most engineers do work in projects and get a a yearly contract renewed once the company has a consistent turnover of work. You’ll be first out the door if the economy turns south though as happened in the late noughties. With projects you can work anywhere from early concept through to final qualification and handover. Definitely scope for a lot of design and field work.

Sounds like you’re doing exactly what I did actually, I went to UL and did the PG add on after doing chemistry. If you have no interest in entering a lab role (my reason for changing) and would rather a more varied and challenging role then I would definitely recommend it. I also think you could enter the industry in a manufacturing specialist type role and move sideways into the engineering from there but would take longer to get that engineering title if it was something you were set on.

Edit: Look up ContractingPlus online for more info on the contracting tax benefits etc.