Survey suggests that UK adults undervalue engineering
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A cross-sectional survey of UK adults has revealed that the impact of engineering on the economy is undervalued and that misconceptions about the industry persist.
Perhaps as a consequence of this, very few people surveyed — especially young people and women — said they would consider engineering as a career.
The survey, commissioned by Bosch, was carried out in September last year among 1,347 UK adults aged between 18 and 45 years.
Only 45 per cent of those questioned — and 23 per cent of young people — believed engineering was a key industry for the UK economy, with a higher proportion of people rating retail, banking and tourism as key to the economy.
Furthermore, a large proportion of participants (92 per cent) thought that engineers mostly have technical roles in business, with less than two per cent of people thinking they are involved in running businesses.
‘In general, engineering is still seen by many people as a “behind-the-scenes” function of business, when in fact engineers have been responsible for so much innovation and business growth,’ Peter Fouquet, president of Bosch UK, told The Engineer.
One telling aspect of the survey was that participants valued end-consumer products, but not the engineering behind them — 63 per cent thought that the car has helped shape the world, while 38 per cent believed the same of the sparkplug.
‘Our awareness and acknowledgement of engineering all around us is not as strong as it should be,’ Fouquet said.
Perhaps the most concerning finding was that only 11 per cent of all participants and five per cent of 18–24 year olds considered engineering as a career, with just three per cent of female students considering the option.
‘The traditional view of engineering, as more of a manual-labour profession, discourages some people from thinking about a career in it, but the modern reality of engineering is very different,’ Fouquet said.
‘A greater focus on this reality may help attract more females to the profession, but we also need more exposure of female role models in engineering because, in order to consider a career, people need to be able to imagine themselves in a particular job.’
Engineering students were more likely to know what career they wanted compared with other students (35 per cent compared with 27 per cent of students in general), but believed there were less opportunities for them (46 per cent cited a lack of opportunity in their chosen career, compared with 31 per cent of students in general).
Nevertheless, Fouquet was confident about the future of the industry: ‘A significant proportion of the country’s economic growth in the coming years will be from sectors such as low-carbon technology, which involves a high level of advanced engineering.’
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Readers' comments (18)
Glen Cooper | 12 Jan 2012 7:41 am
Hi Andrew,
Great topic, one which has stalked the Civil/Structural Engineering forums and magazines for many years. Never seems to disappear either.
I recently raised a poll which saw 155 Engineers (civil) vote on whether pay & status was adequate for Engineers. 87% voted against. No surprise there.
I also wrote a few pots on this, trying to get to the bottom of the problem.
www.buildingmadesimple.blogspot.com
What I found was that we do not take control of our own PR as Engineers. We leave it up to our Institutions - who try their best, but to be fair to them... it isn't really their job to do this.
There are too many of us who either can't or are not predisposed to demonstrate that we are highly skilled profession. This more to do with the fact that the Engineers who do practice self promotion, generally begin running their own businesses. Then the rest of their lives is filled with running a business and employing Engineers and protecting against them disappearing with their client base... We kind of do it to ourselves. A dirty circle.
My conclusion was that until we create a business model which involves collaboration and centres on employing graduates with a mission to create the most rounded, technically and business savvy Engineers possible - then we are only ever looking after ourselves. Ipso facto - we deserve the position which we are in now.
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Dr Anil Kumar | 12 Jan 2012 10:12 am
I would like to point to additional research findings from our (EngineeringUK's) annual engineering and engineers brand monitor (EEBM) which measures the perceptions of young people as well as the general public - the key is to do some thing about it which we are doing with many partners through the Big Bang Fair and Tomorrow's Engineers -> www.engineeringuk.com
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Cam | 12 Jan 2012 10:39 am
No real surprises from this survey I don't think - it's pretty obvious that consumers value end-products and services (transportation, medical equipment etc) without giving a second thought to how they were designed and developed.
Something to note though - if 11% of all UK adults did become engineers we surely wouldn't have a recruitment problem in the industry! It would have been interesting to have asked the participants how they would define "engineer".
I can only encourage people worried about this lack of knowledge to support organisations like STEMNET and help to promote UK engineering, particularly to school kids.
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Glen Cooper | 12 Jan 2012 11:59 am
Hi Cam,
I read your comments and I have theorised that educating children or younger students will only raise our profiles to.. well kids [perhaps their parents too].
The question is, how do we alter the perceptions on Engineering to the public when Engineers themselves are guilty of not caring enough about how this problem can actually be solved.
Answer this question. When we do get through to a student, and they choose engineering as a career... then how does this change the attitudes of the next generation? Or are they likely to become mini-me versions blaming the same people or society for their reduction in status?
I believe that we have to first change our attitude before we can expect real changes.
Of course having a stream of enthusiastic, slightly autistically natured, mathematically minded volunteers to the engineering coal face for another generation of built environmental servitude is always good too....
http://buildingmadesimple.blogspot.com/2011/10/future-of-structural-engineering.html
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Paul Wilcock | 12 Jan 2012 1:25 pm
Maybe the "casual" use of the title engineer does the engineering industry no favours. eg how many sanitation engineers were formerly called bin men? This helps people think of engineering beingdirty, menial tasks. As for perception, I am now involved in traffic signal control. I used to drive through thousands of traffic lights without thinking of the engineering involved. Not an area covered by SUG`s and definitely a shortage area for skilled people and in line with the survey even fewer women.
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Paul Reeves | 12 Jan 2012 1:43 pm
Glen, a good summary of the problem (and I like your blog too):
“Great topic, one which has stalked the Civil/Structural Engineering forums and magazines for many years. Never seems to disappear either.”
I’ve written about this before on The Engineer comments sections and elsewhere. I think that one reason that the topic/problem never disappears is that engineers (individuals and engineering ‘leaders’ :Institutions, RAEngineering etc) that are interested in the issues come up with the same old almost ‘technical’ analysis and technical solutions (not enough/the right education of kids, wrong titles/lack of respect for engineers/ing in the UK, too macho a culture to attract women etc. to list just a few).
I’m not saying that those points are invalid, but they certainly are not the whole story. We need to look at wider cultural, social and political (as well as economic) trends specific to an early C21 planet (cultural and social – both terms that make engineers and techies eyes roll upwards and go to sleep). Just two examples :
1) Sustainability – this has not had a really serious critique made by professional engineers – generally Engineers and engineering companies (unthinkingly in my opinion) go along with these initiatives to appear ‘public’ friendly and ‘nice’ – I guess with the idea of attracting a few more young people into the professions and engineering related businesses. Whatever one thinks of global warming (and I believe it is occurring) – sustainability (more of the same but slightly ‘nicer’) has and will have an impact on the ‘Ambitiousness’ of Engineering that it had historically – from Brunel to the Jumbo Jet and Concorde – when it had a transformative (as well as money making) purpose) which inspired all of society (from children to financial investors) to be ‘part of it’. There are many ways and arguments to address this topic – but let’s at least recognise it is something new that has a bearing on how Engineering is seen by the wider public.
2) Atomisation and self-flattery: In some ways related to the idea of societal ambition – but also related to the loss of religion and even the trades unions, today the ‘individual is King’. Where as in the past many more people to a certain extent subsumed their individuality to bigger things (Heaven, dying for their country, class and politics, profession as well as tradition), nowadays being a ‘cog in the machine’ is certainly not cool. X-factor, body piercing, Facebook and ‘friending’, staying and appearing young is. Despite attempts to make engineering seem ‘cool’ (sustainable engineering, product design ‘creatives’) at bottom engineering big and ambitious things (bridges, aircraft, can production plants) requires an element for the majority of hard graft (not instant gratification) and perhaps many years and dedication working on the same (often boring) project.
With fewer ambitious projects either on offer OR seen as problematic tied into the idea that putting of being an adult until as late as possible is good– then at least some of the reasons why engineering is suffering from ‘bad PR’ can be seen clearer. How to address these issues is another story, but let’s at least try to start on a more sophisticated and wider analysis of the problem and issues.
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Glen Cooper | 12 Jan 2012 3:10 pm
Thank you Paul(s)! Your points are valid.
If fact they all seem valid. The problem which I seek to uncover is more to do with what WE can do to help. As engineers.
Paul you are correct in pointing out their are not near enough high profile projects going around to satisfy all those creative Engineers out there.
Speaking from a small business point of view I believe that I have stumbled across a new client who we all have given lots of time to in the past, but not utilised as well as we should have done.
I try to summarise this idea on my post here - http://buildingmadesimple.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-engineers-want-part-two-day-in-sun.html
As for raising our profile? Learn the history of our industry and teach our Engineers to self promote for the entire profession. Collaboration is key.
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Paul Reeves | 13 Jan 2012 10:03 am
Glen, in the limited space I had available - the point I was trying to make via the two examples is that the issues engineering suffers from (eg lack of ambition) lie at source outside engineering (i..e in wider society and culture) and are not susceptible to the kinds of analysis or solutions that engineers (broadly/stereotypically ) are comfortable with.
Engineers need to integrate into discussions, challenge and question and intervene as individuals and groups (who happen to be engineers) in wider social and political activities, perhaps even becoming unpopular (say by challenging soem aspects of sustainability in some cases) - rather than trying to court popularity or appear to be detatched experst. Here is one attempt to do this:
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2011/battles/5462/
I'll take a look at your blog - and contribute there - that looks like a good start!
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Geofrey Iason | 13 Jan 2012 3:12 pm
I tend to agree with one of the post above re, the term 'engineer' has become somewhat diluted.
I see many 'white vans' on the road these days with XXXXX Engineering emblazoned along the side when in reality many of these individuals / businesses are Technicians or provide Technical services. I won't go into the Enviromental Waste Engineer aka Bin Man arguement as until we can differentiate between engineers and technicians there is no point in trying to hit the lower misuse levels.
Additionally we should consider newer technology which is changing / diluting the 'engineer' name. Within our business we have Software Engineers however I feel the pubic perception is that 'programmers' are not seen as engineers.
I think there are many issues to overcome before the term 'Engineer' again holds real value. Probably only a concerted effort with a multilateral approach from all the professional bodies will again bring value to the term and highlight the true roles and developments that engineers are responsible for.
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Davey | 13 Jan 2012 4:28 pm
Well now the ruling classes must be laughing all the way to the bank with these internecine squabbles of what defines an engineer. Some "engineers" claim that it is a university degree but I beg to differ. Many many years ago I worked for what was basically a huge quango. One could become an engineer the hard way by joining with GCE A Levels and doing in house training and tough exams where failure resulted in a trip to the Labour Exchange. We also used to suffer the plague of "GEEs", Graduate Entry Engineers. We hated GEEs as they would do six weeks at various "stations" travelling around and after about a year they would be promoted into management thinking that they knew it all. We had one GEE come into the workshop with a die cast box that he wished to drill holes in. One hole was for a toggle switch. He fitted a 1/2" drill bit into the drill press and switched on. Unfortunately the last person to use the machine had been drilling number 60 holes in printed circuit boards and the drill-press was set on its top speed. The machine was spinning so fast that the belts and the air were hissing. (The machine had a three phase motor with plenty of power) Wise people ducked as the drill bit entered the metal. The box was snatched from the man's hand and after a brief spin the drill bit broke and the box flew out of the window smashing the glass as it went. Is it really possible to call someone like that an engineer? I don't think so. The dictionary definition of Engineer is actually "a person who works with engines". If this is so one can only assume that a knowledge of metals and strength of materials would be a prerequisite. Not all GEEs were incompetent however, one or two were extremely good in everything they did and you have to take your hat off to such people.
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