There is perhaps more uncertainty than ever at the start of 2021. Despite welcome news of vaccine roll-outs and a Brexit trade agreement that ended fears of ‘no deal’, the Covid-19 pandemic and departure from the European Union continue to pose many challenges and obscure the crystal ball.
It is nonetheless possible to make some forecasts with a degree of confidence. We recently asked our readers: “What are your predictions for the engineering industry in 2021?” Here is a selection of what they had to say.
Pandemic recovery
“After a slow start the whole sector will pick up as we clear Covid-19 and Brexit hurdles. Government investment in infrastructure and defence will help to boost engineering. A shortage of skilled engineers may be a holding factor, but this would be helped by making better use of retired or semi-retired professional engineers, instead of seeking cheaper and less qualified ones from Europe.”
Nick Schulkins MBE
“The engineering industry is generally tied to the economy. With the economy being predicted not to be very optimistic in 2021, the engineering industry should expect a challenging year.”
Richard Fung
“The transport sector is likely to suffer, the biggest cause being that right across society, people have learned how to live without travelling – and some of those changes will be permanent.”
Michael Reid
“If the pandemic has told us anything, it is that value-adding manufacturing is of the utmost use to the country. I predict that the government will be forced to support manufacturing over and above every other form of economic growth.”
Matthew Waterhouse
Life after Brexit
“For many firms, 2021 is going to be brutal. The Conservative government’s Brexit policy is the biggest act of national self-harm that has ever been instigated. The trade barriers, the delays and the cost will make many businesses uncompetitive. I expect many firms to close and many to transfer production to the EU.”
Andrew Hayes
“My hope is that leaving the EU will give many different aspects of the engineering industry a well-needed boost. My prediction is that the term engineer will continue to be misunderstood.”
J Turner
“Robotics brings the potential for re-shoring much of the production previously lost to countries with a lower cost base. Let's grab that opportunity.”
William Richardson
“I hope we'll see more repatriation of engineering – manufacturing of wind farm machinery, railway components and other domestic needs, with an accompanying resurgence in apprenticeships, education and training.”
Gib FitzGibbon
The end of fossil fuels?
“The engineering industry will start to be affected by the global decline of the ‘world as we know it.’ This will not be a recession; it will be the end of the global economy that was based on fossil fuels, the unsustainable extraction of resources and the production of poisonous waste products. This unwise type of engineering was leading us towards a climate emergency, ecological catastrophe and the possible extinction of the human species. Thank goodness it is coming to an end! Engineering needs to be used for the good of the world, not to make money at the expense of the world.”
Jackie Carpenter
“The energy sector will finally get some clarity on building renewables, embedding carbon capture and reinventing ‘Nuclear UK plc’ through modular nuclear... electric vehicle infrastructure will remain a pipedream as stakeholders argue whose role it is to identify and buy destination charging sites.”
Pete Barnett
“Hopefully a massive focus on renewables and environmentally-friendly industrial challenges, including low-energy usage processes, renewable electricity production etcetera.”
Nic Bowman
“2021 looks like being a better time to be an engineer. The push into low carbon is rapidly gathering pace, with governments and companies globally finally getting behind the change. There appears to be an appetite for infrastructure investment to help solve climate issues.”
Richard Haydock
Emerging technology
“IoT [Internet of Things] is still a thing. Augmented reality will continue to grow (including in remote servicing). Predictive analytics will grow to avoid critical breakdowns and keep projects on track. Automation and optimisation of processes will keep moving forward to keep costs under control.”
Alison Owen
“Covid has highlighted the need for rapid responsive engineering to respond to urgent needs. This will continue to grow as new challenges associated with recovering from Covid [appear] and adding value through manufacturing as we enter post-Brexit trading arrangements with the rest of the world.”
R John
The world of work
“A large number of engineers wanting – and being allowed to – work from home now that they've got a taste for it. Employers will see it as a way of reducing office overheads.”
Duncan Saunders
“Redundancies in the big organisations, smaller organisations tapping up the well-trained talent.”
Anonymous
“I predict further shrinkage in jobs and production, with further increases in high value specialist production and services. Where companies depended on high manufacturing rates and turnover, those entities will diversify further or disappear, so more innovative lateral thinking will be needed.”
Ian Weslake-Hill
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.