You say engineer, I say gas fitter plumbers protest at BAE remarks

By Amy Wilson, City Reporter (Engineering) Published: 6:45AM GMT 02 March 2010

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Mr Mullins pronounced his 133 engineers "often have people"s lives in their hands ? traffic with boilers and gas is a dangerous job". Photo: PHOTOLIBRARY

Charlie Mullins, handling executive of Pimlico Plumbers, reacted in a huff to comments from BAE"s Dick Olver claiming that the nation suffers from a "language problem" in describing university-educated engineers in the same approach as those with technical education such as repairmen and gas fitters.

Mr Olver claimed the inequality creates it some-more formidable to capture people to investigate engineering at university and come in the profession, but plumbers slammed the avowal on Monday, arguing employees with years of precision and experience are estimable to be called engineers.

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Mr Mullins pronounced his 133 engineers "often have people"s lives in their hands traffic with boilers and gas is a dangerous job. Why should they stop pursuit themselves engineers?"

"I conclude that Mr Olver is perplexing to keep status for engineers, but you don"t have to work in a production plant to be deemed a "real" engineer," Mr Mullins said.

British Gas, a section of Centrica, employs 8,500 gas fitters. Centrica pronounced it has no plans to stop pursuit staff who fit and say executive heating engineers.

Around 2m people in Britain have the pursuit pretension of engineer, notwithstanding carrying singular technical qualifications.

BAE employs some-more than 16,500 veteran engineers, some-more than half of the workforce. It is Britain"s greatest employer of engineers.

Industry physique EEF pronounced the evidence masked the wider point that engineering suffers an "image problem" in the UK, with people comparing the contention usually with steel bashing and dirty, greasy machine instead of the high-technology systems pattern that right away typifies the industry.

"If you review the incident to Germany, France and Italy where the tenure has the same status as being a alloy or a lawyer, there is this incedibly out-of-date picture here," pronounced Mark Swift, a orator for EEF.

Separately, the Royal Academy of Engineering pronounced in a inform on how to enlarge the series of employable engineering graduates that the Government contingency deposit in high record businesses if it wants the UK to be a universe leader. "The scale and complexity of the routine of neo-industrialisation compulsory is such that it cannot be left only to the free market."