'Dilberts' will now need to think outside the cubicle

The British Government plans to send more engineers into schools to promote their glittering profession. They will follow in the footsteps of gauche cartoon engineer Dilbert, who told a bemused class of kids: "Engineering is one of the best careers available. For the next 20 years I'll sit in a big box called a cubicle. It's like a [lavatory] stall but with lower walls." He concluded his talk with: "The goal of every engineer is to retire without getting blamed for a major catastrophe... and sometimes you get free doughnuts just for showing up!"

As the strip by Scott Adams indicated, there are contradictions inherent in enlisting real engineers to spread the message "engineering is cool". However, an attempt to burnish the image of engineering, and with it manufacturing, is long overdue. Many professionals have poor reputations, including estate agents, politicians and journalists. The difference with engineers is that they deserve better. Engineers create progress when they create new telephones, aircraft and software. Bell and Edison were greater social revolutionaries, it has transpired, than Marx and Engels.

Britain begrudges technologists respect. Take Frank Whittle, who invented the jet engine. His achievement was commemorated last year with the erection of a public statue. It is in Coventry. There is no statue of him on any London street. The implication is that some dreary generals and a fictional Peruvian bear called Paddington merit greater national recognition. Technologists are only hometown heroes, like aldermen and footballers. It can take decades of struggle for talented engineers to achieve honours that Whitehall mandarins receive for merely staying in a post long enough to attend their bosses' retirement parties. James Dyson's contribution to the war on dust bunnies was not recognised with a knighthood until 2006, 23 years after he perfected his world-beating vacuum cleaner. Tommy Flowers, creator of Colossus, the computer that helped crack Nazi codes, fared worse, dying in embittered obscurity.

Phillip Greenish of the Royal Academy of Engineers points out that "complaining about not being appreciated is the worst way to become appreciated". But even the English language is biased against his tribe, he claims. In France, an ingénieur may be a product of a grande école. In Germany, a Herr Doktor of engineering holds his head up among surgeons and airline pilots. In Britain, an engineer who designs particle accelerators shares his professional handle with a bloke who fixes dodgy boilers.

Uncomprehending fear

It does not help that the media is full of people too innumerate to obtain proper employment. These are otherwise known as humanities graduates. We regard technology with uncomprehending fear, like rainforest Indians confronted with digital cameras (or "soul stealers" as us BAs privately think of them). TV coverage of technology is sparse, excepting the current splurge on the Large Hadron Collider. Presenters are either superannuated Jack-the-lads - the Top Gear team - or mad professor types, such as Adam Hart-Davis. As with gay characters in 1970s sitcoms, the stereotypes damningly expose the prejudices of the programme-makers.

Labour has in the past suffered its own nerves over engineering. From a spin doctor's viewpoint, engineering leads to manufacturing, which leads to job losses, which leads to unpopularity for governments. Alastair Campbell once thrust into my hand the script of a speech by Tony Blair in which all references to manufacturing had been crossed out. Like the Soviet dissidents who became un-persons, it had become an un-sector at the stroke of a pen. This week's paper from the government acknowledging the strategic importance of manufacturing to the UK economy is therefore welcome.

The government plans to set up an outfit called Manufacturing Insight to promote careers in manufacturing to the young, just as Enterprise Insight has promoted start-ups. There will be action to coax engineering graduates into the aging engineering profession.

"We need to stop them going into the City and designing derivatives that derail the world economy," explains Stephen Radley of the EEF, an employers body. The downturn in City employment should help with that.

Luring young people with intermediate skills into engineering may be a bigger challenge. John Morton of the Engineering and Technology Board, says: "There has been a 26 per cent reduction in further education students studying engineering and technology over the last three years." Teenagers are behaving logically in avoiding a sector that dumped 1 million workers in the past 10 years to improve productivity. If low-skilled staff have already gone, the middling-skilled may be next.

"Manufacturers have an obligation to make employment more attractive," says Shriti Vadera, a business minister. Many companies are lousy advertisements for their sector. Contract workers - the second-class citizens of the shop floor - may outnumber permanent staff. Career progression can be slow. A workplace culture created by highly numerate men can repel female job seekers as effectively as the fug of body odour and the Lara Croft screen savers.

Employers may need to resocialise hardcore engineers before they can become advocates for their profession. Some excellent training courses are available. Failing that, if visitors are expected, bosses should lure dyed-in-the-wool Dilberts to a lockable room with offers of doughnuts. Under no circumstances should they be sent out to give talks in schools.

- Financial Times