Does engineering need to do more to embed ethics at the heart of the profession? Dr Jim Baxter, an ethicist at the University of Leeds, thinks so. The public good demands it, as he explains. But you can also have your say.
Engineers make the seemingly impossible, possible.
They fired the industrial revolution. They landed a man on the moon. They’ve built and connected the world’s great megacities.
And undoubtedly they will shape the future. They will find ways to help the world feed itself, keep vast populations on the move, and protect people from the extremes of a changing climate.

But the challenges in the coming decades are more complex than those faced by the engineers of the past.
Emerging technologies that promise good also pose threats to our well-being, privacy and human rights – and the consequences of inappropriately used technology don’t stop there. They could further damage an already stressed global ecosystem.
Faced with all of this, engineers can draw on a body of ethics and values to help them make day-to-day judgements: to reach balanced decisions amid the fog of competing demands and competitive pressures.
But is the system in the UK for ensuring engineers are applying those values robust enough?
Back in 2005, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering Council jointly published their Statement of Ethical Principles. Those principles placed an obligation on all engineers to act with honesty and integrity, to challenge unethical behaviour – and to hold paramount the health and safety of others.
It says engineers should ’maximise the public good’.
What is fundamentally expected of engineers, the basic moral purpose of their profession, is no different from other professionals, such as doctors. But in engineering there is a weakness – the system for ensuring that ethical values are followed and applied is fractured.
It is the 36 professional engineering institutions (PEIs), working with the Engineering Council, that provide oversight of an engineer’s professional conduct. However, there is no requirement for a practising engineer in the UK to be a member of a PEI.
As an outsider, when I first started working with the engineering profession, I was somewhat taken aback by the extremely low number of engineers who are professionally registered.
The engineer and lawyer John Uff QC conducted a major review into the structure of the engineering profession – UK Engineering 2016. In that review, he quoted estimates that only 15 per cent of engineers, roughly one in six, were members of a professional body.
The consequence of this – which I suspect most members of the public would find shocking – is that the vast majority of engineers fall outside professional oversight.
There is no assurance that they are keeping up to date through continuing professional development.
The serious implications of this weakness emerged with the inquiry into building regulations and fire safety following the Grenfell Tower blaze. Dame Judith Hackitt, who chaired the enquiry, Building a Safer Future, identified “…a lack of skills, knowledge and experience and a lack of any formal process of assuring the skills of those engaged at every stage of the life cycle of higher risk residential buildings as a major flaw in the current regulatory system.”
The inquiry also noted the importance of continuing professional development, particularly when it comes to fire safety, and drew attention to the fact that in other countries, people who work on complex buildings require certification and registration.
I am involved with a ten year plan to root ethics at the heart of the profession, and for it to become a tool, like the many others that engineers have at their disposal, to guide and inform day-to-day decisions.
The plan was written following consultation with the leaders of the profession, including the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Council, Engineers Without Borders and the Engineering Professors’ Council.
Called Engineering Ethics 2028, it is not proposing a new ethical code. The values established in the statement of ethical principles published 14 years ago still hold true.
What it aims to do is establish a framework which demonstrates that ethical decisions are being made. And the first objective is to bring more members of the profession within the scope of professional oversight, to include them within the boundaries of the profession either through a process of registration or membership of a PEI or through other measures.
Engineers also need to think about their ethical competence. How good are they at applying ethical principles, do they feel comfortable speaking out if they are concerned about decisions that are being made, and do employers have systems in place to support staff who may be challenging corporate decisions?
Engineering Ethics 2028 calls for responsible innovation where practitioners play a part in the public debate around new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, where it is used to benefit people and not simply to save money.
And of course engineers have to consider the impact of their work on a fragile world and to work in a way that is sustainable.
And if the engineering profession achieves those objectives, they will be fulfilling what is the over-arching duty of engineers: to serve the public good.
Engineering Ethics 2028 was written to provoke a debate about how ethics should operate in engineering. Ethics has always been there. But as the profession moves into a world which is increasingly dominated by technology, the profession has to show that decisions are ethically sound.
Failure to do so risks eroding the standing of engineers at a time when they can grab an opportunity to establish a role as stewards of a future shaped by technological advances.
So it is over to you. You now have an opportunity to comment on Engineering Ethics 2028. The consultation closes in January.
Dr Jim Baxter is Professional Ethics Consultancy Manager at the University of Leeds
A thought provoking article for anyone. The issue of Professional Engineers is an old chestnut that keeps returning, but nothing changes. There are a few very specialised fields in engineering where a professional qualification is needed to practice, I am aware of structural engineers and high voltage engineers only. Otherwise the institutions are expensive talk-shops with little relevance to their membership other than in CPD / employment value.
Some companies pay for membership, which would certainly help, but most do not: which reflects their attitude to formal qualifications. Formal qualifications are certainly valuable when involved in litigation and H&S issues as the term “expert” is important in these and ethically is not defined.
The terms “scientists say” and “experts say” are used repeatedly by the media to justify anything they wish to justify: perhaps it is the media that really need ethical guidance?
Great article and couldn’t agree more.
If you’re not aware of it, IEEE has been involved in this work since 2015 with the creation of their paper, Ethically Aligned Design which inspired 15 standards working groups. Would welcome the chance to collaborate if helpful. You can download EAD at: ethicsinaction.ieee.org.
Cheers and thanks,
JCH
Dear Sirs. Think that membership of a professional institution, is not a necessary and sufficient condition for honesty and professional correctness. This is a personal attitude and integrity that a professional organization can not grant.
I fully agree with this article – only engineers can save (or destroy) the planet! I am the lead for university level learning for engineering at an FE college and I have recently forcibly embedded ethical considerations by requiring my students to do an ethics audit against all 17 of the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals for the complete life cycle of their projects. It’s a very powerful and broadening learning technique and last year one of my students won the EAUC’s top award (Green Gown) for ‘Student Research – with impact’.
Reminds me somewhat of the ‘Engineer in Society’ element of my Engineering Degree course 20+ (+++ !) years ago … wonder what happened to that. I agree with Jorge that membership of a professional institution does not automatically render one ethical – and its not clear what the personal consequences would be if found out to be otherwise . Engineers are human and can be as amoral as anyone else. To put food on the table, one is usually solving the problem at hand under external time pressures to a limited budget by a commercially motivated employer/customer – the ethical ramifications and consideration of all the unintended downstream consequences is not usually part of the brief and one may find oneself unemployed should you point any such out..
Well, if your Degree was from Exeter, a few years later it may have been my privilege to teach you: as I took over that module in about 2000: I actually altered the title to Eng-ineer- Ing (to reflect our Continental brothers’ status) and to highlight the differences between Eng (root -engine) and Ing (root- ingenious). If you contact me directly (mikeblamey@yahoo.co.uk) delighted to tell you of the advances (I hope they were) we made. I did have the good fortune, nominated by my students to win the Higher Education Academy award for best UK -Engineering and management lecturer in session 2003/4.
Hello Mike ! my degree was not from Exeter and dates from the early 80’s but by your leave I will contact you directly sometime to make our acquaintance and learn of developments in that arena . I respect all the contributors to ‘The Engineer’ and always enjoy and reflect upon the experiences, insights and opinions promulgated. Regards.
Frank A: Delighted and await your direct communication. I am long retired, but the “Engineer Blog” allows me to maintain my interest in our profession and its advances.
best
Mike B
Would be interested to know how we can untangle ethics from political ethics. The US have declared Iran, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela and other countries to be pariah states and many European companies will not quote equipment for these countries for fear of US retaliations.
Having worked in many of these countries. I can see how tragic it is that the ordinary people are being used in pawns in the USA power-game: I would happily supply useful equipment to any of them. Ethical policies and moral high-grounds are causing massive damage to many people: to quote Robbie Burns, ” Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn”.
I only worked in Venezuela in 1970 and for a few weeks: primarily assessing the potential link between power distribution outages and ‘blips’ in the uniformity of synthetic filament yarns. Even 50 years ago Venezuela (and the governments of other ‘politically’ suspect countries in S America ) was in the ‘sights’ of their large neighbour to the north. Distressing the electricity supply is about as effective a route to national paralysis as its possible to achieve.
I would allow a greater reliance on such assessments if the history of such ‘intervention’ from Washington was unblemished. But it has been a shambles. One reason surely has to be the fact that few American politicians (or business people) ever actually leave their country: even when they are abroad. And I used to blame Pan American Airways and Conrad Hilton for that sorry situation. Add to that the almost complete lack in the US of detailed knowledge of the reality (as opposed to the hype) of ‘foreigners’ -and I blame Hollywood for that: and the attempted imposition of ‘their’ ways on ours: Foreign news in the Philadelphia (when I lived there in the late 60s/early 70s) Enquirer was what was happening in Pittsburg?!
Perhaps the saddest aspect to this is the propensity of ‘our’ Government to suck up to whatever results from this weakness. I am reminded of Harold Wilson’s comment to which ever US President wished the UK to join them in sending military folk to Vietnam. “I will not even send the Dagenham Girl Pipers!” (a marching band of the era)
Dieselgate.
There IS an Ethics crisis in engineering that is worldwide, and worsening. Just look at Boeing with their terrible “engineering” decisions, pushed just to get a faster or simpler FAA “approval”. Or the many defective designs that keep the auto industry having “recalls” for stupid things that should never have happened. Or prestigious aero engine manufacturers pushing out defective (Yes: Defective) designs. If such critical engineering industries are showing such lack of care and ultimately, ethics, the measures to be taken must be swift. Even when most surely the culprits are greedy CEOs and MBAs at the top of the company, true engineers must do whatever it needs to be done to preserve the integrity of their designs. BUT, if laziness, lack of ethics or lack of enough personal interest prevail, we will continue to see more and more defective designs everywhere.
The difficulty I would have with this is the implication that practising engineers will be obliged to join one of the several “recognised” organisations mentioned in this article, in order to be able to practice. There is a good reason that so few serious Engineers join these, and it’s their lack of relevance: they are mostly seen as clubs for those whose ambition is “promotion” into management rather than the sharing and improvement of knowledge. Any good engineer will be considering the ethics of their decisions; if not then they should not be in the profession. Input from professionals in ethics are fine on a “consultant” basis, but the only people who actually understand Engineering are Engineers, despite what politicians , academics, business leaders and the rest may say; and so it’s critical that we do not hand over authority to others in our professional lives.
I am surprised that John Craig dismisses the “clubs” so flippantly. He should look closer at their real professional actities and information and meetings available for the disemination of really useful materials for learning an keeping up to date. The IET for example is certainly at the real centre of learning.
I took the Engineer In Society exam 40 years ago, so it’s nothing new. It was always a requirement of C-Eng achievement.
But ethics – who defines what is ethical? Does working to design and build weapons count as ethical? Does designing fracking rigs count?
We can’t even Legalise the Professional status, or standardise & protect titles and pay rates, unlike the medical, financial and legal professions. If we really are so disinterested that we need to have employers pay our subscriptions, we don’t really have cause to complain.
Some really interesting views on ethical responsibility and of course concern about what should be “maximising the public good” a similar concept to the hypocritic oath.
The institutions are run by self-selected cabals and certainly do not represent my views on what maximises the public good, nor do most of the media. The institutions are really only good for academic qualification ratification and to show evidence of CPD for engineers.
Very interesting article! If we’re so much concerned about professional training of medical doctors who can only “kill” a patient at a time , how much more the Engineer who has a higher probability of “killing a whole nation” in a micro second through “faulty or ill designs”? I can recount, again and again, the numerous benefits and clear sense of engineering practice and ethics I’ve gained ever since I joined professional engineering institutions (IStructE, GhIE) in my area of practice. Certainly, professional engineering institutions cannot wholly be responsible for ethical conduct of Engineers. Conversely, this does not rule out the fact that PEIs have played major roles in ensuring professionalism and ethics in Engineering practice. Whilst I agree that ethical issues are more attitudinal, Engineering Educational Institutions can play a major role in reorienting the mindset of engineering students by incorporating “Engineering Ethics” in thier curriculum. I believe that the need for engineers to join PEIs cannot be overemphasized. This article is a wake up call and I believe that if we diligently pursue, we shall surely overcome these barriers sooner than later.