The Employers Perspective

- by Ray Flower

The prospect of progressing through professional life without actually   attaining   some   recognition,   spurs    many    people
to seek out academic redemption.  In this short journey many discover hidden talents and learn how to use them effectively to the benefit of their organisation.  Many do not even see the opportunities and languish in semi-obscurity and fail to make use of their dormant aptitude.  To me this is a waste.

Against this background, several years ago, Professor Andrew Self from Kingston University and I set out to align the Commercial Aircraft Engineering License to the new Foundation Degree and articulate to a Bachelors degree with Honours.  In some small way we saw this as meeting some of the missing academic elements so desperately needed in Aircraft Engineering.  Both these qualifications have been accredited by the Royal Aeronautical Society to IEng status, something that further enhances the professional status of an Aircraft Engineer and helps with recruiting.

When asked to Chair the Project’s Steering Committee, I was provided with a brief as to its vision and aims.  I was immediately struck by the prospects offered by such a relatively simple concept not only to the individual but to every engineering organisation across the country.  Here, at last, is a mechanism to draw out and recognise the latent talent that we know exists in every engineering organisation, and to provide employers with the opportunity to develop this talent in a way as to benefit the organisation too.

The imperative is that this project must succeed if we are to feed the pioneering engineering society we inhabit, with the talent UK plc needs and deserves.  This is a shared imperative involving the Engineering Council (UK), the Professional Engineering Institutions and, most importantly, the many employers of engineers out there.

Ray Flower  is Training Manager at  KLM Engineering, based at Norwich and is Chairman of the Project Steering Committee