We once had the best.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.timesonlin...rs/article6943355.ece

Do you agree with the Duke of Edinburgh, that what this country is now lacking is something that we once had in abundance and that is Engineers?

[VHG]

Engineers were much more important during the industrial revolution and after when most machines worked with coal and were steam driven. Building huge beam engines and steam trains and mechanical machines was important up to say the 1950s.

While we still do need engineers what I think is far more important today are people with electronics and computing knowledge.

While we may be good at research most of the great electronic and computing products are designed and built in the far east and the USA.

We took the lead in computers during the second world war with Colossus and Bletchly Park, but then destroyed all the computers (and their design sheets) at the end of the war and lost any lead we had in computers.

Our great era was the industrial revolution and people like Brunel (an immigrant - a Frenchman), Watt, Stephenson etc etc

We have been left behind in the 21st century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

[tamborine]

Disheartening when our Gov sells our best engineering for few rupees.

http://www.hmsgangest...jaguar/HMS_Jaguar.htm

[R1Geezer]

No I don't, we still have the best, just watch Nat Geo megastructures, all of them have British engineers in some capaicty or other. Pretty much every race car team have British engineers. Nothing has changed we are still the best in the world. Even that fancy Bridge in France that Chirac had mutiple orgasms over was designed by the British, no change! Cue the anti Britsh lefties digging up examples of c0ckups!

[anotheoldgit]

I must disagree that Engineers are a thing of the past, and only important during the industrial revolution.

Whilst I agree electronics are important, we have long been behind Japan even now China and India.

Electronics are important in their own right, but mostly in IT. Yes we need computers, electronic circuits, in TVs, Washing Machines, car and aircraft management systems etc etc.

But we also need the hardware that goes with the electronics, and this is what we do the best given the chance.

Take Rolls Royce for instance who make the finest aircraft engines in the world, other examples are our finest hand built cars, and right down to the humble Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Yes we have the finest inventive minds, the designers to plan them out and the Engineers to build them. What we do lack in Britain are the people with money ready to invest in some of these projects and skills, but also the politicians who also are not prepared to back us.

[rov1200]

You've put your finger on why Britain is in such a mess compared with the like of Japan, Germany and France. All of them have received subsidies from their governments to enable engineering to flourish. In Britain the job of Engineer has a smell about it and not to be touched if you possess any sort of a brain. Students are encouraged to go into the financial markets and we can all see why. Getting your hands dirty can only aspire you to be an artisan. Now the chickens have come home to roost. The failed financial system have left us like cripples without a crutch to lean on.

[jno]

actually, British computer game designers are generally agreed to be among the world's best; and making software is just as important as making hardware today. So Britain is keeping up with the new world of IT well

http://news.bbc.co.uk...echnology/7688800.stm

Apple's design chief Jonathan Ive has been responsible for the design of the iMac and iPhone among other things, some of the most famous and successful industrial designs of the last 20 years. He's British too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

Actually, I think you've U-turned in your last post and decided it's lack of investment rather than skills that's the problem. This may be right - but if government invested in industry as you suggest, wouldn't you be complaining about socialist policies? Shouldn't this investment be the prerogative of the private sector? That's what's happening now, and the British are doing okay.

[jno]

you might find yourself agreeing with this (even though it's from the Guardian)

http://www.guardian.c...-lacks-skilled-labour

[anotheoldgit]

Yes I do not deny that we also have some great designerrs, but it is no good having designers without having something to design.

You mention British game designers, but technically are they proper designers or simply very clever computer programmers?

You also mentioned Apple's design chief Jonathan Ive, responsible for the design of the iMac and iPhone among other things.

Yes some great designs there, but as I said no good just designing something, they need to be manufactured also.

This is where the engineer comes into his own, he has to transfer the design drawings into an object.

For this dies and moulds etc, have to be manufactured, this is very skilled and concise work. When these have been made then the dies are used to stamp out the metal items, and the injection moulds used to inject mould the plastic items. all on mass production machines to produce the finished article.

For a government to invest in some industries or projects they do not have to be socialist policies, we are not talking full scale nationalisation.

[rov1200]

If (when)Gordon Brown loses the next election I cannot see him taking up a job in the engineering section. The banking profession maybe. Tony Blair is already being paid handsomely for his input into a large banking organisation. Expect more to follow!

[jno]

Then perhaps the job needs to pay more. Then people will want to be engineers more. Sounds like a supply and demand problem to me. It's not true that everyone wants to do media studies; most don't and the vast majority have jobs that aren't media-related. Engineering doesn't just need to attract able people away from media, it needs to get them away from accountancy, serving in McDonald's, football, nursing and all the other jobs that people actually take up. I haven't seen engineering as an industry doing any advertising the way teaching (for example) does. What are they doing to build up the attractiveness of the job?