Professional Engineering

I’ve been covering engineering as a journalist for almost 15 years and in that time I’ve rarely seen a leader of a political party grace an industry event. The usual form is for a junior minister to turn up, utter a few banal platitudes, then get whisked away before any probing questions can be asked.

So imagine my shock to see David Cameron, Nick Clegg and David Miliband attend the launch of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering late last month. To see three such big-hitters on the stage together delivering a unified message was astonishing, and recognition should go to the Royal Academy of Engineering for achieving this PR coup.

What was particularly pleasing was that all three politicians were effusive in their support for the profession. Cameron praised the “genius” of today’s engineers, while Clegg talked about how the country could be proud of its engineering heritage. And Miliband spoke passionately about the need to inspire young people to enter the profession.  

Their attendance at the event ensured that the £1 million prize gained an enormous amount of media coverage. Many of the broadcasts and articles diverged from the prize itself into wider analysis of the reasons behind the unsung nature of engineering and how the situation could be rectified. It was exactly the sort of mainstream media coverage of engineering that, in the past, has been so sadly missing.

Another encouraging factor was the number of major engineering firms that had backed the award. Endowments were made by a range of companies including BAE Systems, BG Group, BP, Jaguar Land Rover, National Grid, Shell, Siemens, Sony and Tata Steel. Executives from all these companies were at the event to deliver a powerful message about the importance of engineering within their organisations and the need to attract more technical talent.

That pan-industry support might prove to be one of the most important legacies from the launch of the new prize. For too long, companies have acted in isolation in their attempts to deal with wider issues such as skills shortages. What we need are better funded, higher-profile initiatives that cast aside any adversarial issues of competition to promote the industry with a stronger, unified voice. If skill shortages are such a damaging and costly problem, why, for instance, has there never been a mainstream advertising campaign, including TV slots, aimed at alleviating the problem? 

The launch of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering illustrated what can be achieved when the industry acts as one. Let’s hope such unity is something we see more of in the future. 

I am delighted to say that PE has won a major award, being selected by the Association of Publishing Agencies as the best membership title for charities, not-for-profit organisations and associations. The award came as really encouraging recognition of the changes that have been made to the magazine over the past year or so. 

But we want to keep improving and part of that process is the development of the PE brand. That is represented by the launch of our first conference entitled Nuclear Now – Supply Chain and Engineering Opportunities in the Nuclear Newbuild Programme. The UK is at the forefront of the nuclear renaissance. That’s why we are putting on this new industry event. 

• See nuclearnow.co.uk or email info@nuclearnow.co.uk for more details.