Age is an important metric for Group Captain Mark Hunt. First off, at a sprightly 42, he is the youngest president the IMechE has had in its 167-year history. That matters, he says, because the engineering profession has a problem. The average age of an institution member is 57 – which means there are a hell of a lot of baby-boomer retirement parties coming soon.
“I’m proud that I’m the youngest president in 167 years,” he says. “It means I am closer to the next generation of engineers than anyone before me. I hope my passion and enthusiasm will engage their imaginations. There is a chronic shortage of engineers coming through, and tackling that is my top priority.”
With the average age being so high, the institution could be facing something of a succession problem. Although membership numbers are the highest they have ever been at around 106,000, Hunt says he wants to see those numbers continue to grow, with younger engineers coming through the ranks to replace those approaching retirement. “As an institution, we must encourage young engineers to join and lower the average age, if we are to remain in touch and relevant,” he says.
“Retention of mid-career engineers also needs tackling. Statistics show that after obtaining professional registration, many members lapse amid pressures of career development and family distractions. Therefore, we need more effective ways of attracting and retaining members, convincing them to volunteer to help shape their institution and the profession at large.”
So attracting young engineers, and retaining those who have already signed up, are priorities. And you don’t doubt that he will tackle them head-on. Hunt’s demeanour is that of a successful military man – he has had a long career in the Royal Air Force, with stints in Afghanistan. There’s a drive and intensity about him – a restless excitement about the challenges.
He knows that he cannot crack the skills problem in a one-year term as president. But he wants to set the tone to ensure that skills are on everyone’s mind, he says. “We all need to focus on this over the next decade; otherwise, the profession will lose its way. Engineers need to accept responsibility to play their part in society and promote engineering wherever they can.”
One aspect of the skills problem that particularly frustrates him is the stubbornly low number of women entering the profession. Multiple efforts from companies, professional engineering institutions and others seem to have done little to move the recruitment rate from 6% to 8% of the total engineering workforce. For a profession in need of more engineers to meet future demand, he feels that the sector is missing an opportunity to influence and encourage 51% of the population into Stem careers.
Why does this problem persist? he asks. Is it the image, working conditions, male embedded attitudes, career progression, or all of the above? Initiatives continue to establish ways of encouraging greater participation. Some companies, such as missile maker MBDA, have managed to reach more than 50% of all new apprenticeships being filled by women. However, unless this success rate is duplicated nationwide, engineering will continue to struggle to fill the ever growing shortage as baby-boomer engineers retire over the next few years, he says.
“The figures are dire. But there are plenty of great female role models out there, I get to meet them all the time. We must make more of the women engineers that we do have. We have some brilliant role models, from every background, and if they are willing to be ambassadors, then we must push them forward, for the benefit of the institution and of the wider profession,” he says.
And it’s not just gender imbalance he’s concerned about. “Diversity is really important to me. And I mean that in the broadest sense of the word – gender, ethnicity, all elements. We need more engineers of all backgrounds,” he says.
If the industry hasn’t done a particularly good job on attracting women into engineering, there is one area where better progress is being made – with the surging number of apprenticeships that are being created. Hunt’s first visit as president was to the North West, where he heard from a host of companies in the nuclear sector, many of which have active apprenticeship programmes.
Not too long ago, the emphasis was purely on getting as many youngsters to go to university as possible. But over time, there has been an acceptance that some students are better suited to vocational learning, and as a result apprenticeships are back in vogue.
This trend delights Hunt, who wants to see the number of apprenticeships in the UK rise from its present figure of around 1.7 million to two million by the end of his presidential year.
“Apprenticeships are really important,” he says. “The nuclear sector in the North West acts as a brilliant model in terms of activity that should be duplicated and rolled out across all sectors and areas. The government is behind this – we are all pulling in the right direction.”
Apprenticeships are vital for manufacturing, he says. “The challenge is to continue to rejuvenate interest in apprenticeships – they are the backbone of manufacturing. As a nation we learnt a bitter lesson – we cannot have a thriving, self-sustaining economy without a healthy manufacturing sector. Service industries are not enough.”
Career driver: Hunt says Bloodhound is helping to attract people to the sector
One specific project that Hunt thinks illustrates the depth of know-how within the British manufacturing base is Bloodhound, the initiative to design and build a car that will make an attempt on the land-speed record in South Africa next year. The supersonic vehicle is gradually coming together, with important sub-sections such as the upper chassis and the driver cockpit having been constructed at the Bloodhound team’s facility in Bristol. More progress is being made as every day passes, with dozens of British companies supplying parts. When the car is ready, Hunt thinks it will be something to be proud of.
The IMechE sponsors the Bloodhound project, and Hunt thinks it was money well spent. “It was a big decision to get involved – I remember vividly the trustee board discussion about it in 2010. There was talk about it being a lot of money. And there is always the chance that something could go wrong on a project such as this. But what a mistake it would have been not to get involved with Bloodhound. It was a brilliant risk to take, and it has paid dividends.”
He thinks Bloodhound is an exemplar for the profession. “Whoever said engineering is boring could not have been further from the truth. You have only to look at Bloodhound to realise this is one of the most exciting feats of engineering in a generation, and it is certainly motivating people to consider engineering as a career. In one project, it touches all of my presidential themes – seizing the opportunity, promoting entrepreneurial spirit, influencing society, inspiring the next generation, and engineering our future. It is perfectly matched to the aims of the institution.”
Does he think the Bloodhound team will achieve its ambitions, smashing the land-speed record of 763mph, and ultimately travelling as fast as 1,000mph? Hunt is an engineer – so he isn’t prone to outlandish claims or predictions. But he remains cautiously optimistic. “I think we are going to be ‘all guns blazing’ for the world record next year. But what an example to set to the world. Bloodhound is the
hottest topic in town.”
Expert in airworthiness
Group Captain Mark Hunt has been an engineer officer in the Royal Air Force for 20 years. He has a background in airworthiness and safety and has served widely, including four tours in Afghanistan.
Hunt is the type airworthiness authority for the RAF’s intelligence gathering, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance fleets of Sentinel and Sentry aircraft. Previously, he was chief air engineer at RAF Brize Norton – home of the air transport and air-to-air refuelling force and gateway to defence operations.
Quest for collegiate structure
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Group Captain Mark Hunt’s presidential year will be the discussions and debates he hopes to initiate about the structure of the engineering profession. He thinks that there are too many professional engineering institutions. With a total of 36 separate organisations, the engineering sector suffers from a diluted message when it tries to influence politicians and policymakers, he argues.
“Thirty six professional engineering institutions is double too many,” he says. “The numbers will contract naturally – but it will probably be at too slow a pace.”
Hunt would like to see the disparate strands of the engineering profession moving closer together and eventually establishing some form of collegiate structure that gives it a single voice, with individual disciplines underlying this.
“As a profession, we are quite conservative. We’ve got to consolidate, somehow,” he says. “The real genius stroke here will be to recognise the identity of the broad set of disciplines, but to consolidate to one single voice to society and government. It might be some kind of collegiate, or federated, activity. It has been much talked about – we just need to be bold and make it happen.”