Who's to blame for the poor status of engineering in the UK?

Question

In most countries Engineers are protected by law (similar to accountants, lawyers and doctors in UK), in all these countries Engineers command respect.
Who is responsible for the situation in the UK, is it government ? is it a weak engineering council?
With fewer and fewer graduates studying engineering surely action needs to be taken to promote the image of the profession, what better than legal protection for Engineers.

Answer 1

Interesting how you can get seriously "done" if you go around calling yourself a paramedic (protected title) but any old plumber, grease monkey, road sweeper etc can called themselves an "engineer" (not a protected title). The public don't know what the engineering council is - they have no concept of a professional engineer and the requirements to register as one. So, my opinion: the government needs to protect ALL professional titles so that only those who meet the recognised body's registration requirements can use them.

Answer 2

Action does need to be taken to encourage more young people to take Engineering. Unfortunately there's not many people wanting to take Maths and Physics at A level. What is encouraging however is that from the A level results today its clear that people taking maths has increased a lot this year which is encouraging. However from reading the Professional engineer a couple of months a go 1 in 9 secondary schools don't teach Physics at A level - a sad state of affairs.

The one thing which I thought about physics at A level was why was i doing this? - none of my teachers related what they were teaching in the class room with the real world.

Further to this problem people will be deterred from going to uni when Tuition fees go up to £3000 a year. If there were more Apprenticeship scheme's maybe people would prefer to go down that route instead!

Answer 3

First of all, engineering graduates in the UK are merely engineering assistants compared with USAmerican, Spanish and Latinamerican graduates. The education is good, but not deep enough. Three years are not deep enough if you want SMEs to hire engineers. You need them to be able to work from the first day and not wait to be trained. So, British engineers actually don't help much. That's fault of the Ministry of Education and of the large companies which demand fast track engineers so they can train them later.

Once you solve that, the engineering council should start a marketing campaign advising SMEs to hire engineers, explaining what we can and can't do.

I am a member of the Industrial & Mechanical Engineering Career Council at the University of the Republic of Uruguay, the only state-owned university in the country, and my mates didn't pay any attention to me when I suggested a marketing campaign to explain business owners the qualities of engineers. So, good luck to you.

Answer 4

I'm not sure that granting legal protection will help give engineers professional status. The media might twist a call for legal protection and portray it as a 'dereliction of duties', so it might actually end up having the opposite effect . Nowadays status seems to be implied more by salary, fame, power/influence, title.
I think respect could be gained by somehow making society proud of their country's engineering achievements and showing children how engineers help build the world they live in. I'm thinking of things like Wembley stadium... oh , no that was an Australian engineering firm, the Welsh national stadium - no that was American, how about the British car industry ... no we won't go there. The skills which our home-grown engineers will be able to demonstrate in building the next fleet of nuclear reactors to power Britain... nope that's the French. Howabout the masses of government subsidy that is going in to implementing the largest forrests of wind-turbines on the British isles ... nope they've been designed & engineered by the Norwegians I believe. Replacing our submarine fleet's nuclear deterrant .. America, need I go on?
At least British engineers working for BAe & Rolls Royce designed & built the engines & wings for the first of the larger passenger airliners the Airbus A380, but wait ... what is this http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2124890,00.html

Answer 5

This is news to me. One of the best engineers I've ever met studied and worked in the U.K. He was an Irishman named John Hayes.

If they have more engineers like him over there, I can't imagine they would have a poor status.

Americans and British aren't studying engineering because its too much work. "Thinking is the hardest job, thats why so few people want to do it".

Answer 6

i think it is both government and engineering council fault..both have to be more concern about what is going on(fewer and fewer graduates studying engineering)..it is quite humiliating for UK because most of engineering tools and machines come from your country..something should be done you know..

Answer 7

As a qualified Engineer out of Engineering work for the past two decades.....Thatcher the cow!!!!

Answer 8

I also blame Maggie Thatcher, look what she did to the British manufacturing base in the drive to 'tirm away the fat'.

Answer 9

The governments educational policies

Answer 10

not legal protection.if the profession is able to show the higest standards,of proffesionism and can demonstrate inventive engineering,there is no need for legal protection.