We still need you! – COVER STORY

Ten years ago, the then Government named 1997 as the Year of Engineering Success. The initiative had the backing of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and of the Mechanical Engineers. Also putting their weight behind the campaign were The Royal Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Employers Federation and a range of the country’s largest employers. The aim of the initiative was to promote the role of the engineer and to underline the importance of engineering in the UK. One of its objectives was to increase awareness across all ages – particularly the young – of the vital role of engineering to the nation’s success and prosperity. Ten years on, the world doesn’t seem to have changed a great deal. At the end of 2006, research undertaken on behalf of C-MAC Microtechnology found ‘an alarming picture of a skills crisis brewing in the UK engineering industry’. C-MAC’s survey of 100 heads of university engineering departments and 250 undergraduate engineering students drew attention to what it believes are ‘the very real dangers facing the once mighty British engineering industry, including the challenge of enticing teenagers to study engineering then, crucially, retaining graduates within an engineering career’.