UK Royal Academy of Engineering president, Sir John Parker, says his organisation has launched a campaign to put the sector at the heart of the economy as the country slowly recovers from its long recession.
Addressing the Academy Awards dinner at London’s decommissioned Battersea Power Station, also attended by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister), George Osborne, Parker pushed home the importance of engineering.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“This has been quite a year for engineering,” he said. “We have started a campaign to show the importance of engineering in the economy and overall to our young people.
“The engineering sector employs more than 5.4m people and accounts for 50% of the UK’s exports. The signals [are] this administration is focused on delivering growth in its wider sense in engineering and technology services. We are getting on the right track to get sustainable growth.”
The Royal Academy president cautioned however, there was still a pressing need to develop new “technology scientists,” a theme echoed recently by motors and fans supplier, Ebm-papst, which urged engineer stock be replaced as demographics and competing career options take their toll.
Ebm-papst (UK) managing director, Gareth Jones, noted a three-year projection forecast some 96,000 engineers would retire in Britain and not enough was being done to replace them.
“If you go to Germany engineering is considered a profession – engineering in the UK is not seen as a very sexy or attractive industry,” he said.
Parker emphasised the UK still had “much more to do to build the skills required for the future,” but part of that process would require young people to be inspired by engineering and make it a career choice.
