Everyone's an engineer now.

[ReformedCharacter]

I hold engineers in high respect, they've created much of the modern world. But to my mind an engineer is someone with a degree, or similar, in some form of engineering. When I worked in IT doing client visits the 'phone staff would frequently refer to us as 'engineers' which we weren't, technicians would have been a more accurate description. Last year we had some windows fitted and I called the company who fitted them because one needs adjusting. A reply came stating that 'one of our engineers will be in touch...'. So now window-fitters are 'engineers'. Seems all wrong to me

RC

[XFool]

I hold engineers in high respect, they've created much of the modern world. But to my mind an engineer is someone with a degree, or similar, in some form of engineering. When I worked in IT doing client visits the 'phone staff would frequently refer to us as 'engineers' which we weren't, technicians would have been a more accurate description. Last year we had some windows fitted and I called the company who fitted them because one needs adjusting. A reply came stating that 'one of our engineers will be in touch...'. So now window-fitters are 'engineers'. Seems all wrong to me

I think the word "technician" is likely dying out. I feel these distinctions are simply unknown to most people now. "If you've got an ology, you're a scientist!"

Wait long enough and window fitters may yet end up as "scientists".

[Lanark]

Burger flippers are now Burger Technicians
Hair colourists are now Colour Technicians

No doubt checkout operators will soon be called Checkout Doctors.

I guess it is because most of the people doing these jobs now have degrees, so it helps them to think it wasn't all a waste of time.

[Bminusrob]

But to my mind an engineer is someone with a degree, or similar, in some form of engineering.

RC

I can't agree with this statement. Having recently had central heating installed in my 200 year old house, I am happy to call the man who designed the system an engineer. It is surprisingly complicated, and the designer also needs to fully understand all the legislation involved.

I call myself an engineer, now retired, having a maths degree, and having worked in electronic and software engineering all my life. I remember having a discussion with a young girl (pre-teen) at an Institution of Engineering and Technology gathering. I talked about my work in the television industry, and said that my father had also been an engineer - a domestic heating engineer. He left school at 14, worked as an apprentice, then as a plumber before starting his own business. I then asked the girl who had the more important job, me or my father. Or, as I put it to her, if it is a cold winter day, and your central heating isn't working, and your telly isn't working, which do you want fixed first?

[ReformedCharacter]

But to my mind an engineer is someone with a degree, or similar, in some form of engineering.

RC

I can't agree with this statement. Having recently had central heating installed in my 200 year old house, I am happy to call the man who designed the system an engineer. It is surprisingly complicated, and the designer also needs to fully understand all the legislation involved.

I call myself an engineer, now retired, having a maths degree, and having worked in electronic and software engineering all my life. I remember having a discussion with a young girl (pre-teen) at an Institution of Engineering and Technology gathering. I talked about my work in the television industry, and said that my father had also been an engineer - a domestic heating engineer. He left school at 14, worked as an apprentice, then as a plumber before starting his own business. I then asked the girl who had the more important job, me or my father. Or, as I put it to her, if it is a cold winter day, and your central heating isn't working, and your telly isn't working, which do you want fixed first?

I agree with you, my definition of an engineer was a little too exclusive. Many non-qualified people deserve that title but definitely not the guys that fitted my windows.

RC

[scottnsilky]

Ah, that old chestnut, probably been argued over since Archimedes was a lad. I have a degree in mechanical engineering but that doesn't necessarily make me an engineer, I like to think I am, but engineers also need imagination and ingenuity, but that's not really why I'm writing this.
A week or so ago I read about Donald Trump having taken secret documents back to his Florida home and the FBI found some stuffed down the toilet, the article wrote an 'engineer' was called to retrieve them! What was his/her title?. Fetching soggy documents out of the lavvy engineer perhaps.

[kempiejon]

I used to say I was a sound engineer because I plugged in some speakers and adjusted the volume knobs on a mixer whilst some bands made noise. Now I'm an audio visual technician because I plug in some speakers and fiddle with volume knobs while some bands play.

I like the line in the movie The Breakfast Club where the caretaker/cleaner (janitor in American) was described as a purveyor of the custodial arts.

[BullDog]

Anybody can be an engineer. Anybody can be an accountant etc..... What you cannot be unless you are authorised by the appropriate professional body is a Chartered Engineer or Chartered Accountant. The chartered titles are protected in law.

It is regrettable that the word engineer (and accountant) has become so debased in common everyday language. But the professional bodies have recognised that it's now far too late to protect the word "engineer ". The boat has sailed in the UK.

By the way, it is recognised custom that a person who operates a railway engine is called an engineer.

BullDog CEng MIChemE, now a retired chemical engineer.

[stewamax]

The Project Manager - the boss - was formerly called The Engineer. I think IK Brunel used and preferred the term.
When I worked in a vacation job installing a telephone exchange, the gaffer was The Installer.
And when, much later, I worked in Germany and Switzerland, I was introduced as Diploma Engineer Stewamax - pedantically correct as I am a Chartered Engineer and do have a postgrad diploma, but having previously worked for many years for an American company I much preferred my forename and informality.

[Mike4]

The debasement of the term is even encouraged by trade bodies.

Gas Safe Register when it used to be CORGI (only the sign over the door changed), used to refer to us as "Registered Gas Installers" and the monthly comic they sent to us was named "The Gas Installer".

Now they have upgraded themselves to "Gas Safe Register", we members have all become "gas engineers". This I find cringeworthy when I look around the room at my peers as we are all undoubtedly "gas technicians". Most in the room don't even know the difference between stress and strain.

Even our monthly magazine is now called "The Gas Engineer", and many of us have a highly inflated opinion of our ability including me, probably. My dear old departed Dad was a proper Chartered Engineer and he would be spinning in his grave, had we not cremated him. (He had a charming humility and a GREAT sense of humour!)

[gryffron]

I think the word "technician" is likely dying out.

We haven't trained any technicians since Blair turned all the Polys and Tech Colleges into Universities. For 20 years we just imported them from Eastern Europe. Now, they just don't exist.

Gryff

[Mike4]

I think the word "technician" is likely dying out.

We haven't trained any technicians since Blair turned all the Polys and Tech Colleges into Universities. For 20 years we just imported them from Eastern Europe. Now, they just don't exist.

Gryff

What rubbish. I consider myself a technician, or do you hold otherwise?

[gryffron]

What rubbish. I consider myself a technician, or do you hold otherwise?

And how old are you Mike? Cos there aren’t any new ones.

Gryff

[Redmires]

I was trained by the GPO so commonly known as a telephone/telecomms engineer. However, according to the official grading system we were technicians. The grades were T2A (technician 2A), T2B, T1, TO (technical officer) etc. What's in a name though ?

[ten0rman]

I was trained by the GPO so commonly known as a telephone/telecomms engineer. However, according to the official grading system we were technicians. The grades were T2A (technician 2A), T2B, T1, TO (technical officer) etc. What's in a name though ?

I too was trained by the GPO & BT (as it became) and became an AEE (Assistant Executive Engineer) in 1980. On the day I reported to my new L.3 manager following promotion, he said that my promotion meant that the GPO now considered me to be an engineer thus lending credance to being a technician before then. I should point out that my highest certification is a City & Guilds Full Technological Certificate in Telecommunications & Electronics, hardly a degree level result.

ten0rman

[Nimrod103]

I think the word "technician" is likely dying out.

We haven't trained any technicians since Blair turned all the Polys and Tech Colleges into Universities. For 20 years we just imported them from Eastern Europe. Now, they just don't exist.

Gryff

Is this not simply grade inflation, which has been rampant in the universities for some years? When I graduated nearly 50 years ago, I achieved a 1st class honours degree, of which my department had only ever awarded 2 before in the previous 30 years. A 2.1 degree was rare. Now they are ten a penny. And so who wants to be a technician, when you can be called an engineer? (though of course the employer doesn't have to pay you any more for being called engineer).

[Mike4]

We haven't trained any technicians since Blair turned all the Polys and Tech Colleges into Universities. For 20 years we just imported them from Eastern Europe. Now, they just don't exist.

Gryff

Is this not simply grade inflation, which has been rampant in the universities for some years? When I graduated nearly 50 years ago, I achieved a 1st class honours degree, of which my department had only ever awarded 2 before in the previous 30 years. A 2.1 degree was rare. Now they are ten a penny. And so who wants to be a technician, when you can be called an engineer? (though of course the employer doesn't have to pay you any more for being called engineer).

Me Sir, me, ME! I like being a technician.

The title reflects the manual skill and dexterity I have which is missing from the hands and fingers of quite a few well-qualified proper engineers I know.

[Spet0789]

Personally I think this is one of several reasons why the U.K. lags behind other European countries in manufacturing and technology.

I took a degree in engineering. When I applied to university, engineering was up there with Medicine in the required academic standards. There were at least 5 universities where you needn’t trouble to apply without a AAA prediction. Oxbridge, Imperial, Bristol, Bath, even Southampton. Not the case for any other degree course.

In Germany, Engineer is a highly respected title. The U.K. would benefit from restricting its use to Chartered Engineers.

Engineers do not fix gas boilers! They write code for fly-by-wire systems. They perform the finite-element analysis that ensures your car will protect you in a crash. They design the single-crystal titanium jet engine blades with tiny air channels that prevent them from melting in the HP stage of the engine. They develop foldable high definition screens for mobile phones with lower power consumption.

Until we treat Engineers with the respect that their highly skilled, academically-demanding profession demands and don’t confuse them with plumbers, we won’t have enough of them in this country.

Health care assistants are not neurosurgeons. Both are important but the skill gap between some so called engineers in this country and the real thing is as large.

[scotview]

I served my time as a fitter and turner, ONC.
Then the drawing office HNC.
Then University BSc Mech Eng
Then MIMechE, AMICE

A couple of things.

1 There were only about 4 of us out of 200 that went through to MIMechE from a starting group of apprentices. But all those other apprentices recognised our "bit of paper" saying we were engineers.

2 There are engineers and there are engineers. Some are virtually hewers of wood and drawers of water (like me) BUT some are truly gifted and don't just apply engineering principles they deeply and fundamentally understand them, they are different. So even in engineering there is a very discrete strata of ability.

[TUK020]

Personally I think this is one of several reasons why the U.K. lags behind other European countries in manufacturing and technology.

I took a degree in engineering. When I applied to university, engineering was up there with Medicine in the required academic standards. There were at least 5 universities where you needn’t trouble to apply without a AAA prediction. Oxbridge, Imperial, Bristol, Bath, even Southampton. Not the case for any other degree course.

In Germany, Engineer is a highly respected title. The U.K. would benefit from restricting its use to Chartered Engineers.

Engineers do not fix gas boilers! They write code for fly-by-wire systems. They perform the finite-element analysis that ensures your car will protect you in a crash. They design the single-crystal titanium jet engine blades with tiny air channels that prevent them from melting in the HP stage of the engine. They develop foldable high definition screens for mobile phones with lower power consumption.

Until we treat Engineers with the respect that their highly skilled, academically-demanding profession demands and don’t confuse them with plumbers, we won’t have enough of them in this country.

Health care assistants are not neurosurgeons. Both are important but the skill gap between some so called engineers in this country and the real thing is as large.

Quality rant. Have a rec.
TUK020, BSc(Eng) Elec Eng, Imperial, MBA.
Inventor on 10 patent filings in Digital Radio & Mobile Telephony