[Closed] Government e-petition to make 'Engineer' a protected title

Engineering suffers from an image problem. People believe that engineers simply fix things, but we don't: we invent things.

Next problem?

Bollocks. People sat at PCs using software should not have an exclusive right to the term engineer. They should be called designers as that is what they do.

I'm right behind this. The term should be restricted to those who have professional registration.

It's been tried before and the government said no.

Bollocks. People sat at PCs using software should not have an exclusive right to the term engineer. They should be called designers as that is what they do.

Quite right, it should be reserved for those of us with an actual engineering degree and/or full membership of an engineering institute.

I thought an engineer was the person who operated a steam engine?

LOL. Talk about ego.

Bollocks. People sat at PCs using software should not have an exclusive right to the term engineer. They should be called designers as that is what they do.

I may change my job title.

Poor little darlings.

All those NHS specs, 4 years at university without getting laid and now this.

😉

Don't proper engineers have the opportunity to differentiate themselves by using their degree without wasting govt resources by having hissy fits?
BEng or MEng?

[i]It is thus proposed that the title 'Engineer' is protected legally, like 'Doctor' or 'Architect'.[/i]

mmm, well I know people called Software Architects who wouldn't know one end of a set of French curves from another and my old boss had 'Dr' on his business cards 'cos he had a posh maths degree.

LOL. Talk about ego.

I would say that the only ones with ego problems are the ones who feel it necessary to compansate for something by inflating their own job title to make seem like they are something more than they actually are.

Engineer = Chartered

engineer = something else...

Different approach in Europe. Academic and professional qualifications are valued and respected.

IMO It's all part of the British (English?) anti-intellectualism

I have some far far more competent (non degree holding) guys working for me now than when I worked at a very very large M&E consultantcy. They certainly deserve the term engineer far more than the degreed up ego maniacs who didn't have a clue how a building and it's associated systems actually works.
The job title hasn't been inflated, it's always applied. It's now being railroaded by insecure protectionist elitist with oversized egos and sense of exactly what they're capable of.

I'm right behind this. The term should be restricted to those who have professional registration.

This is the point I think. Professional registration through a known body means you have to have met certain criteria accepted as a standard by industry. Engineers are engineers, technicians are technicians. The difference isn't blurry though one may take on the others role at times if needed. It provides clear understanding to anyone you engage with that you've met a standard and can classify yourself as someone who can do the job properly, unlike joe bloggs down the road who's a handyman that fixes washing machines and calls himself an engineer.

It has a good point, but it's bound to rub salt in some wounds. The germans have such a system and it works well.

IMO It's all part of the British (English?) anti-intellectualism

Precisely, it's not cool to be qualified or respected, better to be joe bloggs in a back street putting lives at risk.

IMO It's all part of the British (English?) anti-intellectualism

Too right. You should be valued by what you achieve not by spending years avoiding doing anything useful and getting a piece of paper

Clearly no idea what professional registration requires... 🙄

Too right. You should be valued by what you achieve not by spending years avoiding doing anything useful and getting a piece of paper.

But that's nonsense in reality. While there's plenty of useless people qualified (and that's down to the quality of eng courses, and a byproduct of reducing quality of A levels etc) there's also useless folk with years of experience who are useless and know sweet FA but think they do.

And FWIW, plenty of students and post-grads do very useful work that feeds into or is part of larger scale research projects, but only the blinkered (or those from pointless degrees) would not realise this.

Clearly no idea what professional registration requires...

+1

Trouble is, coffee king a heating contractor with 20 years of experience in his particular field will design a far better heating system than some multiskilled degree monkey who knows a fraction of whet the real engineer does. So that membership or whatever stands for very little.

This is a real problem in this country, the skill shortage with respect to actual engineers is large and growing.

My father in law calls himself engineer. He isn't the brightest and can't do maths or write well - he worked as a turner (lathe operator). This is a common abuse of the term.

You don't put a sticky plaster on a kids knee and hence become a medical doctor........

Trouble is, coffee king a heating contractor with 20 years of experience in his particular field will design a far better heating system than some multiskilled degree monkey who knows a fraction of whet the real engineer does. So that membership or whatever stands for very little.

and when something goes wrong and people are killed, guess which one ends up in court.

Trouble is, coffee king a heating contractor with 20 years of experience in his particular field will design a far better heating system than some multiskilled degree monkey who knows a fraction of whet the real engineer does. So that membership or whatever stands for very little.

A heating contractor with 20 years experience may be able to tackle a heating problem very well, he may even be able to tackle a refridgeration project. A properly qualified and registered engineer will generally be able to attack any project in his rough field (mech, elec, materials) with good technique, understanding of the theory and application and knowledge of the risks, as well deal with the budgetary issues of a large project, and manage the team of people etc. You're comparing someone who has 20 years experience with someone who walks out of their last degree exam, which is stupidity.

My father in law calls himself engineer. He isn't the brightest and can't do maths or write well - he worked as a turner (lathe operator). This is a common abuse of the term.

You don't put a sticky plaster on a kids knee and hence become a medical doctor........

The technicians where I work consider themselves technicians and are very protective of the term (with as much gusto as engineers!). They'll actively point out that they don't have the skills to calculate what's required or design an experiment for X Y or Z, but they'll laugh at you if you put something impossible to machine in front of them, and often help in the design process by feeding back what's easy to make and what's going to take them weeks. They ask us not to be technicians and to leave the making to them as they can do it properly 😀 Which is fair enough. It seems in the UK if you can put stuff together and are no better than experienced DIY standard, you feel you should be called an engineer as technician or some other term isn't good enough for you. Funny.

But that's nonsense in reality. [b]While there's plenty of useless people qualified[/b] (and that's down to the quality of eng courses, and a byproduct of reducing quality of A levels etc) there's also useless folk with years of experience who are useless and know sweet FA but think they do.

Getting qualified isn't impressive in any way.

Your work stands for itself.

Trouble is, coffee king a heating contractor with 20 years of experience in his particular field will design a far better heating system than some multiskilled degree monkey who knows a fraction of whet the real engineer does. So that membership or whatever stands for very little.

And, we don't doubt that he can fit a central heating system better than me, no more than Tracey Emin can poo on a tent and call it art better than me, it still makes her an artist, me an engineer and the plumber a plumber.

Software [u]Engineer[/u] here.

Engineering degree? Nope. (BSc Computer Science)
Membership of an engineering institute? Nope.

Do I do [i]engineering[/i]? Yup. 😀

My neighbour was a Boilermaker/Welder, and calls himself an 'Engineer'. However, he lacks knowledge of basic engineering principles, physics and chemistry, and I'd have him down as a fabricator rather than an 'engineer'. He isn't happy that he isn't actually considered an 'engineer' by current industry standards, and I think he used the term to enhance his professional status somewhat, but he's certainly not someone who could be employed for many actual engineering tasks. You should see the shelves he put up in the lobby; they're shit.

And he makes a crap cup of tea. Definitely not an Engineer, as he lacks the fundamental skill that qualifies you as one.

Aaawwwwwwwwwww bless. Do you want some nice letters to put after your name on your business card?

[img] [/img]

You engineers are a funny bunch.

*goes back to studying this strange social grouping from a distance*

That is my point.

Getting qualified isn't impressive in any way.

Your work stands for itself.

Getting qualified, with a good degree standard, IS impressive as it provides the theoretical basis on which work is grounded. Those who attack things from an intuition level and experience are nothing more than people who've put in some time. Most engineering students work 40-50 hour weeks minimum for their time at Uni (if they're not their course isn't up to scratch) and are putting in just as many hours and just as hard a time as those who've been out "in the field" as it were.
But the point is that what is being argued here is that only those who are professional engineers (i.e. those registered with professional bodies) can call themselves engineers, not those qualified with a degree in it - there's a difference.

The thing is being an engineer requires the knowledge and method of thinking you get from the degree, being a technician requires stuff you can learn on the job. What you're confusing here is jobs that are effectively advanced technicians posts with engineers posts, which are often mis-labelled for reasons of making the job title sound better.

Software Engineer here.

Engineering degree? Nope. (BSc Computer Science)
Membership of an engineering institute? Nope.

Do I do engineering? Yup.

Bearly, you were only let into the "group" grudgingly 😉 only kidding. Incidentally most electronics specialists have a LOT of programming experience - plenty switch between electronics and software with ease, and the opposite is true.

Getting qualified isn't impressive in any way.

Your work stands for itself

As, I said - clearly no idea about what professional registration requires - or is about.

It IS ABSOLUTELY NOT about sudying for a degree and passing exams, although you need to do that first off....

Gaining professional registration is about gaining relevant professional (on the job) experience. It is about receiving structured training and career development, under the mentorship of a senior colleague. It is about developing, and practicing,your professional skills - and above all, it is about understanding your responsibilities...

Actually has almost NOTHING to do with studying an academic subject and passing exams. It is ALL ABOUT demonstrating your competence and profesional judgement within the field in which you work

"who are useless and know sweet FA but think they do"

I'm s****ing that someone typed this on an internet forum without realising the irony.

I just got a bit of post saying I owe someone £130 to keep some of the letters after my name next year, not sure if that makes me an engineer or a mug?

'spoon MEng AMIChemE (and some others I forget)

5thE,

Getting qualified isn't impressive in any way.

It may not impress you, but it took me 6 years to feel I knew enough after uni to apply to get chartered, and it took a further year of report writing interviews and culminated in a 7 1/2hr exam with a pass rate of 30-40%, all outside of work (ie working weekends etc), so I am proud to use CEng. It was bloody hard work!

Anyway, forget Engineers, I'm a [i]Scientist[/i]. 😀

So ner! 😛

Well I learnt more about theory (in my field) during my vocational training than I did through my degree.
If you think that a high standard engineer has no understanding of how a system works, you're mistaken. A high standard refrigeration engineer will smash a Beng Mechanical designers knowledge of refrigeration (design, service, theory etc) into the water. This really is a fact.
The M&E consultants have a phrase for anything they can't do. It's called "design and build".
Maybe there is a broader abuse of the term engineer such as triggers "environmental engineer" but to say that the term belongs to designers is plain wrong.
I shouldn't get so defensive as there's no chance of it ever happening anyway.
Oh and a bloke I work with has loads of post nominals (memberships etc) no degree. He's no better or worse than anyone else I work with.

so I am proud to use CEng

Rightly so - one of the most demanding qualifications to achieve...

That's not a false pride, ie, as posted by some above "diddums wants some letters after name" - it's a real pride based on achieving something that will have required real determination and hard work.

Why the hell does having a degree in engineering make you more of an engineer than someone who has served a recognised apprenticeship and done a day release/night school course?

Erm, well I'd imagine it might be simliar to why does someone who's done a Medical Degree get to become a Doctor, when a Nurse what's worked for years on wards treating patients does not in any way.

Why the hell...

Snobbery? Possibly pedantry... it seems to be 'de rigueur' amongst this particular group.

A high standard refrigeration engineer will smash a Beng designers knowledge of refrigeration (design, service, theory etc) into the water.

As a BEng qualified engineer who at one time desinged refrigeration systems for the LPG industry, I can say with confidence that there is no way a desinger will know more than me about the design and theory of such systems. Servicing them yes, but then servicing equipment isn't the job of an engineer.

Isn't this simply about demanding some kind of respect rather than earning it?
I'm quite sure the general public are well aware that the washing machine engineer isn't a real engineer and equally they wouldn't expect any of the well educated engineers we have here to able to fix a washing machine either.
Which one is more important? Depends if my washing machine is knackered or not, doesn't it?
Which one is insecure?

The germans have such a system and it works well.

Interesting comparison.

German manufacturing retains a global reputation for quality, precision, and "high value" products. That quality is a product of all levels of German industry - the stereotypical obsession with detail. From the boardroom to the shop floor - not just Engineers, but engineers, fitters, etc, etc.

We still do this in the UK of course (RR aero engines for example), but it is an unsung sector. As a society, we do not appear to value the skills that make RR (or BMW) a global success story.

We value vacuous celebs and promote underachievement.

promote underachievement

Everyone on here should be on their way to the top then, surely?

failedengineer - Member
Why the hell does having a degree in engineering make you more of an engineer than someone who has served a recognised apprenticeship and done a day release/night school course?

No one said it didn't, however being able to fit a sky dish, plumb in a central heating system or machine something on a lathe has about as much to do with engineering as dog walking.

Brunell = Engineer
Guy hammeing in rivets = riveter
guy fiting my heating = plumber

Which one is insecure?

The one who made up his job title?

Put it another way, if you (assuming generic mechanical degree) and a C&G level 3 refrigeration engineer walked in fresh from training/degree he'd have wiped the floor with you. The C&G course full time (not day release) takes/took 2 years. Mech degree 4 years full time; how much of that 4 years is dedicated purely to refrigeration?
Don't get me wrong, designers are very clever people and high value. obviously the refrigeration engineer is of less value as he only knows refrigeration (albeit very well).
The term engineer does not belong exclusively to designers and never will do (in the UK at least).

If I had known back then what I know now my title would have been armed robber.

Id have knocked a bank over for a few quid (enough to make the news) and then sat on it for the time I was in the nick, would have been out at 25 is with a shedload of cash (not that I would have hid the cash in a shed)

another way of looking at it i suppose .

Spoony - as my inside man to this group... are you atypical?

German manufacturing retains a global reputation for quality, precision, and "high value" products. That quality is a product of all levels of German industry - the stereotypical obsession with detail. From the boardroom to the shop floor - not just Engineers, but engineers, fitters, etc, etc.

I'd argue it was more to do with protectionism and a desire to keep itself at arms length form the EU. German stuff isn't neciceraly any better made, they just created a whole raft of standards to adhere to which required companies to be certified, which made it harder for foreign companies to export to Germany, thus the impression that the Germans were better as they had a bit of paper from their mum saying so.

What's the problem again? You think the general public cannot distinguish between Brunel and a riveter? Or someone who fixes the bog? One's work usually speaks for itself.

how much of that 4 years is dedicated purely to refrigeration?

Very little I'd suspect, afterall all a refrigeration system is a compressor, condenser, boiler, and some interconnecting pipework. It's really not very complicated thermodynamically.

The thing is though the one who has spent will understand how compressor and heat exchangers actually work and will (should) be able to apply that knoledge to other problems and won't be limited to refrigeration systems. That is the key difference.

b**locks. Most engineers I worked with could turn their hands to most (mechanical) disciplines and quite literally, could design stuff 'on the back of a fag packet'. One guy machined a 4 valve head for a BSA B50 from scratch with a few sketches ..... I could go on. No-one I knew had degrees. IMHO there are too many people with degrees in all sorts of subjects who are actally qualified to do nowt useful at all. They expect an easy ride an a good salary because they've been to an ex-polytechnic and can pass exams .... grrrrrrr. Sorry. I'll have a glass of water and sit down now.

German manufacturing retains a global reputation for quality, precision, and "high value" products. That quality is a product of all levels of German industry - the stereotypical obsession with detail. From the boardroom to the shop floor - not just Engineers, but engineers, fitters, etc, etc.

Aye until the guy on the shop floor hears said german company bringing in the jobs has decided to shut the plant and the jobs may not be there anymore ,it doesnt matter how good the design or engineering or "precision" of the whole operation is, when the guy on the production line can no longer be arsed as he feels undervalued.

 

if you (assuming generic mechanical degree) and a C&G level 3 refrigeration engineer walked in fresh from training/degree he'd have wiped the floor with you

The C&G course full time (not day release) takes/took 2 years. Mech degree 4 years full time; how much of that 4 years is dedicated purely to refrigeration?

That's really not the point...

A new graduate - yes even a BEng graduate is going to be green behind the ears, and you're right, would be almost useless next to a skilled technician.

But that isn't what is being discussed. A new engineering graduate is a very long way from being a Chartered Engineer - as posted above, about 5 years of hard work progressing through closely scrutinised professional training and early career development

German stuff isn't neciceraly any better made

Exactly - which is why I stated [u]reputation[/u]. We still do high quality added value products in the UK, and Rolls Royce is a very, very good example, but I think it is fair to say that we have lost the renown for quality that we used to have.

I also stressed that the values required for this "reputation" extends from the boardroom to the shop floor.

I've been working with some German / Swiss clients recently. Engineers are present in roles of responsibilitiy right through the company(ies). In the UK board level roles are predominantly filled by lawyers, accountants and sales / marketing types.....

Most engineers I worked with could turn their hands to most (mechanical) disciplines and quite literally, could design stuff 'on the back of a fag packet'. One guy machined a 4 valve head for a BSA B50 from scratch with a few sketches ..... I could go on

Interesting, could they design a turbine or compressor on the back of a fag packet? How about doing the thremodynamics to ensure that the selected material won't catestrophically fail? Somehow I doubt it.

[i]It is thus proposed that the title 'Engineer' is protected legally, like 'Doctor' or 'Architect'.[/i]

Doctor? Like Cilla Black and Simon Cowell?

My last three job titles were 'Architect' despite having absolutely no building experience whatsoever.

I'm a real engineer because I have a Tech Eng diploma and I'm a member of an official engineering body but I couldn't care less if someone wants to call themselves an engineer. Fill your boots. You can have any title you please, you'll never *be one*.

Exactly - which is why I stated reputation. We still do high quality added value products in the UK, and Rolls Royce is a very, very good example, but I think it is fair to say that we have lost the renown for quality that we used to have.

I also stressed that the values required for this "reputation" extends from the boardroom to the shop floor.

I've been working with some German / Swiss clients recently. Engineers are present in roles of responsibilitiy right through the company(ies). In the UK board level roles are predominantly filled by lawyers, accountants and sales / marketing types.....

I'd disagree with you totaly.

I do think we have a good reputation, we regulalry win contracts at a higher cost than our competitors based on better quality work than might be achieved elswhere in the world based on our experience in doing what we do.

As for board roles, IIRC Engineers (diproportionately Process Engineers) make up the biggest %age of board members in FTSE100 compaines? Closely followed by Geography graduates (go figure that one out).

samuri has a point

TINAS - more than happy to be wrong on the board level posts 😉

Regarding "reputation" - agreed within individual disciplines - perhaps to clarify my point I should offer up "public perception" instead of "reputation"....

Trying to protecting the word engineer is pretty pointless imo.
Since the day the word became common place in the language it has had a variety of uses, and I don't think chartered engineers have any more right to the word than other professions that have and still use it, in much the same way as medical doctors don't have exclusive rights to the initials 'Dr'.

I think it would make more sense to come with a new word or better still promoting the 'Eng.' prefix more.

Most engineers I worked with could turn their hands to most (mechanical) disciplines and quite literally, could design stuff 'on the back of a fag packet'. One guy machined a 4 valve head for a BSA B50 from scratch with a few sketches ..... I could go on

Interesting, could they design a turbine or compressor on the back of a fag packet? How about doing the thremodynamics to ensure that the selected material won't catestrophically fail? Somehow I doubt it.

More importanlty was the new head actualy any better? Not much point in putting 4 valves in the ehad unless your going oversquare on the cylinder, otherwise your just generating a more complicated solution to a none existant problem. Not really engineering?

Spoony I think you remember incorrectly TBH.

I think a better analogy for Samuri would Mrs Gillain McKeith? Everyone was outraged (in the Daily Wail sense of the word, maybe we should get the wod outrage proctected too, it's overuse is an outrage!) that she wasn't actualy a medical doctor.

The point is it's not actualy allowed to call yourself a Doctor unless you are? You could be a Dr or astrophysics, but you wouldnt introduce yoruself as a Doctor, youd say your an astrophysacist (or a Banker more likely these days). '

Says I'm an engineer on the side of my van, copy of The Sun on the dash.
Yup.
I'm more worried about the mind set of fresh engineering graduates at top universities:
"Yeah, I'll work at Network Rail for a few years, they've got a Graduate program that means I'll be chartered really quickly. Don't care 'bout trains"
Couldn't care less what people call themselves, it all becomes pretty clear if it gets brought up in conversation
"I'm an Engineer"
"Cool, what do you do?"
"Fix fridges mostly"
"Ah sweet. I'm an engineer too, I design laser designators for Thales"

Spoony I think you remember incorrectly TBH.

Nope (well, for the Fortune100 in 2005 anway) we make up 22% of CEO's

http://content.spencerstuart.com/sswebsite/pdf/lib/2005_CEO_Study_JS.pdf#nameddest=edu

No idea where the geography link comes from, but sounds too daft to have been made up.

 

Nope (well, for the Fortune100 in 2005 anway) we make up 22% of CEO's

So you meant to say 'Yes' then 😆

As CEO is different to Board Member and Fortune100 is different to FTSE100.

"Ah sweet. I'm an engineer too, I design laser designators for Thales"

we need to talk...

Legend - Thales

As CEO is different to Board Member and Fortune100 is different to FTSE100.

Yes, but I have engineering to do rather than spend time googleing exact statistics :p

Very little I'd suspect, afterall all a refrigeration system is a compressor, condenser, boiler, and some interconnecting pipework. It's really not very complicated thermodynamically.

The thing is though the one who has spent will understand how compressor and heat exchangers actually work and will (should) be able to apply that knoledge to other problems and won't be limited to refrigeration systems. That is the key difference.

If someone had told me beforehand that BSc = 16 hours a wek BEng = 40 of lectures I know which I'd have done 🙂 - no one apart from the xEng contingent seem to know the difference or indeed care once you're out in the world (with a few honourable exceptions of course).

wrecker - sure, but a new graduate Mechanical Engineer will also fully understand all of those things - plus structural mechanics, dynamics, strength of materials, control systems, manufacturing processes and a whole raft of other things.

They study heating/refrigeration systems in a lot of detail (most of 2nd year thermodynamics if I remember rightly).

Not sure who put the boiler in the fridge though...

don simon - Member
Isn't this simply about demanding some kind of respect rather than earning it?
I'm quite sure the general public are well aware that the washing machine engineer isn't a real engineer and equally they wouldn't expect any of the well educated engineers we have here to able to fix a washing machine either.

I am not so sure. While doing my degree, people would ask what I was studying and when I said 'mechanical engineering' many would say something like "oh, so you want to repair cars, do you?"

I can't deny that steveo, but if talking purely about a refrigeration system, the refrigeration engineer will know more about that particular system than a mechanical designer will. 6 months dedicated to refrigeration vs 2 years?

I inspected a buildings M&E systems for defects some time ago (following complaints). It was designed by a by high profile consultancy.
I found a VRF outdoor unit located directly below a fire escape landing (a few inches). A VRF unit rejects heat upwards, an engineer would know this, result didn't work. The Water chillers were in a tiny compound with no air flow too close together, result didnt work. Water tank had a vent duct 2" above it, it could not be inspected and therefore unsafe, result drained down cannot use (L8 regs). Too many designers see equipment as boxes (in my industry) and fail to see how the plant actually works. I shouldnt complain, it keeps me in work!
Also, I've met many "M&E engineers" who do nothing but use IES every day! How are they engineers?

Boiler, eh?

Yup, you know the exchanger where the the refrigerant is actually "boiled" off. Call it a different name if you like but that is what happens in it. I was talking about closed indirect loop stuff although for LPG carriers they normally used a direct loop stuff.

You actually have no idea of the training people go through

No I don't, but I do know that refigeration systems aren't complicated.

So if there was a plane on a treadmill?

anyone that can answer that can have the title

I am not so sure. While doing my degree, people would ask what I was studying and when I said 'mechanical engineering' many would say something like "oh, so you want to repair cars, do you?"

People sat at PCs using software should not have an exclusive right to the term engineer. They should be called designers

Designing the software that other people use is only part of the work, about 10%. Software and Information is just more abstract than wire, gears and concrete. Software Engineers are Engineers.

wrecker - yeah, that's often where new graduates make mistakes is in terms of simple practicality. Made a few myself (nothing disastrous that I can remember!).

I think people suffer not so much from arrogance as from feeling that they HAVE to do it all themselves. There's no substitute for taking your flash new design over to the guys who are actually going to make/install/maintain it and saying "what do you think"?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Burger%20Engineer