Why we can't do without engineers

摘要

Against an unsettling backdrop of spiralling fuel costs, plummeting house prices and increasingly bleak predictions of economic woe, here is some good news: the UK manufacturing industry is growing. And while this growth - 0.1 per cent in April, says the Office for National Statistics and the manufacturing industry - is hardly a boom, it's preferable to the wailing and gnashing of teeth emanating from the darker corners of the UK's economy. The prime reason for this relative success is simple, and it's laid bare on most pages of every issue of this magazine: unlike the money-men shuffling around notional amounts of money, and the financial services companies pushing products that no-one wants or needs, engineers make things - tangible things that people both want and need. Perhaps the key word here is 'need'. While few of us will shed tears at the thought of a few grotesquely remunerated bankers falling on harder times, the world cannot do without engineering. Without engineers the lights go off. The trains stop running. The hospitals shut down. The supermarket shelves lie empty. And ultimately, humans are deprived of the basic necessities required for survival.