Survey suggests that UK adults undervalue engineering

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.