Technical Note. Professional Engineers' Needs for Managerial Skills and Expertise.

Abstract

This report gives the results of a questionnaire sent to a sample of Chartered Engineers resident in the UK in 2002 to survey what 'managerial' skills and expertise they need in their jobs. The conclusions are intended to guide employers, teachers, training staff, the professional Institutions, regulatory authorities, government departments and engineers themselves on what may be needed stage by stage in the education and careers of professional engineers. The report includes comparisons with data obtained in a similar survey in 1979.

Civil engineers' managerial roles and needs: report of survey

“…The survey covered I in 20 corporate members and 1 in 100 associate and graduate rncmbers in the UK and overseas. The questionnaire was similar to one sent to samples of chartered engineers in February 1979 (Faulkner and Wearne, 1979), but with the important differences that the 1984 sample was confined to ICE members and covered a much larger proportion of them.…”

“…The questionnaire used in 1979 was sent to relatively small samples of the corporate members of the 10 largest engineering Institutions (Faulkner and Wearne, 1979). Seventy-five usable replies were received from ICE members.…”

“…It is increasingly recognized internationally that the majority of engineers employed in industry and public services have extensive managerial and other non-technical responsibilities (Beuret and Webb, 1983;Faulkner and Wearne, 1979;Zussman, 1985). Those in the construction industries have been identified by the National Economic Development Ofice as playing crucial roles in determining performance, especially by their recommendations and decisions in project design and construction, management roles in client and contractor organizations, and the export of consultancy services (National Economic Development Office, 1976).…”

Developing Engineers as Project Managers: An Ongoing Challenge

“…It is thus clear that the development of an engineer's skills and expertise in management is of crucial importance. A survey done by Faulkner and Wearne (1980) during the late seventies amongst chartered engineers in the United Kingdom, which was followed up with a similar survey in 2002 by Dudman and Wearne (2003), clearly indicated how underprepared young engineers were for future managerial tasks. The surveys also emphasised that these managerial skills are often already required early in the engineer's career, leading to the challenge of adequately developing these skills as soon as possible.…”

“…Under normal career development conditions, an engineer will only fully develop this skill-set and get to practise the fundamentals of management when he or she becomes accountable for the work of other people in a team, and has to guarantee that work is planned and achieved as per specified requirements. Team members being managed at this level may not all be within the same technical discipline as the engineering project manager, resulting in the project manager facing the added difficulty of understanding and dealing with other disciplines and novel factors and ideas associated with the multidisciplinary nature of the project (Faulkner & Wearne 1980). Steyn reiterated that project management originally developed from within the engineering industry with the construction, aerospace, and defence industries contributing significantly to this development and, as such, project management is still very much part-and-parcel of the work of most engineers in all parts of the world (Steyn et al 2016).…”