Forward thinking

As the new decade dawns, there’s a temptation to try to make predictions. But as predictions have a habit of being inaccurate, we’ll stick to one that we can be sure of. There will be a general election in the UK this year.

And for the country’s engineers and technologists this could have far-reaching consequences. With the finance sector - the engine of the UK’s economy for the past three decades - still in disarray and disgrace after the banking collapse, many believe that engineering and manufacturing should resume its place at the forefront of wealth creation. Making things, the argument goes, is a more sustainable and concrete activity than just making money. But how could politicians help? Should they, indeed, help at all?

We asked some of the leading figures in UK engineering across a variety of sectors what they thought about some of the issues affecting industry as the first decade of the 21st century stutters to a close. Their views are personal and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the organisations they work for, but they reveal some common points of view on these issues, although different ideas on how to tackle them.