The number of newly registered incorporated engineers continues to decline. The strategy of the Engineering Council is clearly not aligned to supporting the engineering technologist professional. Given the governments commitment to technical education the IET should create their own professional register to provide a relevant standard. It is obvious the current UKSPEC standard lacks credibility in terms of the IEng grade
I think everyone here's heard me express the thoughts below before, but put in a different way this time:
Q: Is IEng (or equivalent) useful?
A: Yes, it shows that "implementation engineers" (or insert your own preferred description) are working in a professional fashion. Q: Is it useful to recruiters?
A: Yes, it gives peer-reviewed evidence that staff don't just know their subject (which can be determined in other ways) but will also act professionally. Q: Is it useful to employers?
A: Yes, it gives third party accreditation of their staff. Q: Is it useful to engineers?
A: Yes, working towards it gives guidance of industry best practice, and achieving it gives confidence that this has been met. Q: So why isn't it being used?
A: My guess is there are three issues: value, confidence, and usability. Q: What are the value issues?
A: It's a question of how much more confidence anyone involved can have in staff with IEng registration. Or to look at it the other way, what are the risks if you can't demonstrate that your staff are working to IEng standards. In my experience this is where the IEng/CEng difference becomes clear: it would be expected that IEng's should be working to processes, so actually the risks are (or should be) already being controlled by the control of the processes. The link of CEng to innovation comes where you need someone to take personal responsibility for a piece of engineering which has no specific processes to control it - so you need really good evidence that this person is going to act professionally. Whereas at IEng level companies and organisations can (and probably do) argue that if their organisation is good then internal competence control is sufficient. Personally I strongly disagree with this view, I would also add that they can gain added value in better delivery of their projects by following industry best practice in their engineers competence. Q: What are the confidence issues?
A: The PEIs are widely seen in the UK engineering industry as "old boy's clubs". Registration is often seen as a box ticking exercise with no relation to the real needs of engineering. I have very, very often come across these views, but very rarely - if ever - come across someone who holds these views who has actually read UKSpec. I strongly believe that if UKSpec was explained to employers etc they would have to admit that these are the qualities they are looking for in their staff. But this requires a very proactive approach to get into non-PEI interested industries. Crack that, and I think there's a chance of cracking the "old boys club" image. Q: What is the usability issue?
A: There are hardly any IEngs out there. So there's no point employers asking for it as they won't get enough applicants for jobs. So engineers don't get it as they don't see it as adding value. It's a chicken-and-egg situation, which can only be broken by there being some other drive for engineers to become IEng.
I don't think what the status is called is a huge issue, I also find the "equal but different" / "stepping stone to CEng" debate unhelpful. The critical point is making industry confident that:
Third party accreditation of engineering staff at positions not covered by CEng is of value,
The PEIs are competent to provide such accreditation,
UKSpec is an appropriate standard.
As I say, I personally strongly believe in point 1, but making a Value Proposition for this to industry is hard (but I don't think is impossible).
I am very happy to robustly defend points 2 and 3 - but we do need the IET as a body to accept that it still needs to persuade the wider industry of this. I get very frustrated by those involved with the IET who, because they only deal with others in PEI-heavy industries, simply don't appreciate that the majority of the engineering world exists outside the PEIs. The Uff report should be a wake-up call, but the snooze button mustn't be hit...
I think everyone here's heard me express the thoughts below before, but put in a different way this time:
Q: Is IEng (or equivalent) useful?
A: Yes, it shows that "implementation engineers" (or insert your own preferred description) are working in a professional fashion. Q: Is it useful to recruiters?
A: Yes, it gives peer-reviewed evidence that staff don't just know their subject (which can be determined in other ways) but will also act professionally. Q: Is it useful to employers?
A: Yes, it gives third party accreditation of their staff. Q: Is it useful to engineers?
A: Yes, working towards it gives guidance of industry best practice, and achieving it gives confidence that this has been met. Q: So why isn't it being used?
A: My guess is there are three issues: value, confidence, and usability. Q: What are the value issues?
A: It's a question of how much more confidence anyone involved can have in staff with IEng registration. Or to look at it the other way, what are the risks if you can't demonstrate that your staff are working to IEng standards. In my experience this is where the IEng/CEng difference becomes clear: it would be expected that IEng's should be working to processes, so actually the risks are (or should be) already being controlled by the control of the processes. The link of CEng to innovation comes where you need someone to take personal responsibility for a piece of engineering which has no specific processes to control it - so you need really good evidence that this person is going to act professionally. Whereas at IEng level companies and organisations can (and probably do) argue that if their organisation is good then internal competence control is sufficient. Personally I strongly disagree with this view, I would also add that they can gain added value in better delivery of their projects by following industry best practice in their engineers competence. Q: What are the confidence issues?
A: The PEIs are widely seen in the UK engineering industry as "old boy's clubs". Registration is often seen as a box ticking exercise with no relation to the real needs of engineering. I have very, very often come across these views, but very rarely - if ever - come across someone who holds these views who has actually read UKSpec. I strongly believe that if UKSpec was explained to employers etc they would have to admit that these are the qualities they are looking for in their staff. But this requires a very proactive approach to get into non-PEI interested industries. Crack that, and I think there's a chance of cracking the "old boys club" image. Q: What is the usability issue?
A: There are hardly any IEngs out there. So there's no point employers asking for it as they won't get enough applicants for jobs. So engineers don't get it as they don't see it as adding value. It's a chicken-and-egg situation, which can only be broken by there being some other drive for engineers to become IEng.
I don't think what the status is called is a huge issue, I also find the "equal but different" / "stepping stone to CEng" debate unhelpful. The critical point is making industry confident that:
Third party accreditation of engineering staff at positions not covered by CEng is of value,
The PEIs are competent to provide such accreditation,
UKSpec is an appropriate standard.
As I say, I personally strongly believe in point 1, but making a Value Proposition for this to industry is hard (but I don't think is impossible).
I am very happy to robustly defend points 2 and 3 - but we do need the IET as a body to accept that it still needs to persuade the wider industry of this. I get very frustrated by those involved with the IET who, because they only deal with others in PEI-heavy industries, simply don't appreciate that the majority of the engineering world exists outside the PEIs. The Uff report should be a wake-up call, but the snooze button mustn't be hit...
