Engineering and the economy
With greater emphasis being placed on education, training and careers in engineering, new research shows that while most adults recognise the importance of engineering and manufacturing younger people take less pride in our industrial heritage.
While as many as one in two people aged 18-24 believe that manufacturing and engineering are important to the British economy, just four in ten (39%) sign up to the view that we should be more proud of our manufacturing and engineering sectors. This is in stark contrast to middle aged and older people, with four in five of those over 55 (80%) valuing manufacturing’s role in our economy and over a third (68%) believing that we should be more proud of this area of industry.
Engineering and technical communications agency CadenceFisher carried out the research as part of a continuing programme to understand the way British people think of the sector and to see the role that better communications can play in encouraging more careers in industry and better promotion of the economic benefits of our manufacturing expertise.
CadenceFisher’s Dan Doherty welcomed the results: “Despite the huge shift towards a service led economy in recent decades, manufacturing and engineering remain important aspects of our economy. Careers in the sector can be highly rewarding and as the mature markets of countries such as the UK strive to be competitive by developing ever more efficient, sustainable and high quality methods and output, there may be more to be proud of than some people realise. Half the battle is in building and growing a manufacturing base, the other half is in making sure everyone knows about it.”
