Future Demand for Engineering Skills
1. Overview
Australia has taken many steps to strengthen its presence on the world stage. We have
instituted measures to put us on a path to meet the economic, social and environmental needs
of our society. But we still have a way to go. In spite of efforts over the last decade to
broaden the base of the economy, Australia is below advanced industrial countries in the
production of high technology goods and services that constitute the fastest growing area of
world trade.
In the international arena, the pace of development is quickening. For Australia to participate,
we must pursue scientific and technological advances. Australia must develop technologies
that will ensure the competitiveness of our goods and services in the global marketplace of
the future. Australia’s engineering workforce is integral to ensuring that we become a strong
player in world markets, and in solving domestic economic, social and environmental issues.
Engineers make a huge difference to the world around them. By providing solutions to the
needs of their communities, engineers literally shape the future, giving form to ideas that
make life better. Engineering is at the heart of modern economies and contemporary life.
Many of the things that mark out the last century - even the last decade - are the direct result
of engineering. Engineers aim to improve the quality of life for all of us and everything that is
made or built results from their expertise, from smart buildings to video phones, from the
Internet to digital television.
As scientists make new discoveries, engineers are at the forefront of turning that knowledge
into something practical and valued. As Dr Dan Turner, when he was President of the
American Society of Civil Engineers, said: "The American life span has extended by 40 years
in the past 100 years: by 3 years due to medical advances and by 37 years due to engineering
advances. These advances to public well-being through good engineering were achieved by
the provision of clean water (Civil Engineering), the removal of wastes (Civil & Resource
Engineering), the upgrading of human living space (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical
Engineering) and the upgrading of food supplies (Agricultural, Chemical, Electrical
Engineering)."
To contribute to development of a vision of the likely nature of the Australian economy,
Engineers Australia provides the following information for consideration by the Steering
Committee.
2. Population Issues
Engineering is about applying science and technology to satisfy basic human needs. The role
of engineering in developing and implementing new technologies places engineers in a
central role in improving the health and living standards of the community, improving the
standards of environmental care and generating wealth for Australia.
Urban Design
The increase in Australia’s population choosing to live in single person households and the
recent property boom has had a major impact on urban expansion. Cities such as Melbourne
and Sydney are experiencing significant growth in new urban development and
redevelopment in established suburbs. Without significant change to future planning for our
cities, Australia faces a number of problems including increasing pollution and health risks
and difficulty in and providing adequate amenities such as public transport.
The ageing of the population, combined with changes in family units into two or more
separate lone person or single parent households is working to increase housing demand with
the ABS predicting that lone-person households will increase by 39% by 2021. A lower turn
over of housing stock as older people live longer and healthier lives, living at home until they
die, is also a factor working to increase housing demand and fuelling urban sprawl.
There will be a significant role for engineers in using and supporting the development of
sustainable planning practices throughout Australia in response to the pressure created on
urban expansion through population ageing. These measures will include methods for
reducing energy and water consumption, improved transport links, conservation areas,
community centres and sporting facilities.
Health technology
Population growth will play a major role in increasing the demand for engineering skills.
Engineers have an important role to play in health technologies and improving and
prolonging people’s lives and reducing the impact of physical impairment allowing them to
remain in their own homes and participate in society though volunteer positions and paid
employment. Advances in medical technology have already resulted in age specific disability
levels falling.
Advances in 20th century medical technology have been remarkable. Armed with only a few
instruments in 1900, health professionals now have an arsenal of diagnostic and treatment
equipment at their disposal. Artificial organs, joint replacement, imaging technologies, and
biomaterials are but a few of the engineered products that improve the quality of life for
millions.
Today, people live nearly 30 years longer, on the average, than their great-grandparents did at
the beginning of the 20th century. To this end engineers have worked with the medical
profession to develop technologies for surgery, medical implants, bioimaging, and intensive
care units. Indeed without the involvement of engineers medicine could not have developed
to its current level of sophistication. The types of medical device and the complexity of
medical technology are expanding constantly. Medical device development relies heavily on
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professional engineers with expertise in mechanisms, electronics, optics, metallurgy and
material science, computing and software, manufacturing and risk management.
Significantly, the ongoing delivery of health care in Australian hospitals is particularly
dependent on professional engineers who develop and manufacture medical technology,
install and commission it, oversee or actually maintain and service the equipment through its
working life, ensure its proper and safe function and see to its safe disposal to prevent harm
to the environment.
3. Priorities for the Future
Given the speed and unpredictability of knowledge development and the dynamism of
modern research, no one can confidently predict all directions from which new developments
and discoveries will arise in the future. However, based on the idea of developing our core
competencies and capabilities and based on data on current and past success stories,
Engineers Australia has identified a range of sectors as priority areas for the future. These
include medical research & biotechnology, environmental technology, agriculture, mining
technologies and electronics. Engineers Australia believes that these are areas where
Australia has existing capabilities, and there is potential for these areas to result in significant
technological advances that promise the greatest return to Australia. There will be a
leadership role for the Government to play to ensure that Australia becomes innovative and is
competitive in world markets.
Medical Research and Biotechnology
Specific fields within the medical research and biotechnology categories are already
recognised by government and industry as offering high potential and Australia has already
demonstrated considerable expertise in these fields, which provides advantages for enhancing
existing technologies and creation of new products.
These fields are:
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Human Health: pharmaceuticals and vaccines, diagnostics, bio-materials, biological
tissues and substitutes, rehabilitation technologies;
Agriculture and Food: GM crops and livestock, production techniques;
Gene manipulation;
Bio-diversity; and
Biochemical research
Medical technology and biotechnology are areas that are receiving a great deal of attention
and are of growing interest for engineering. Australia has a strong history of primary research
turning into market leading products and techniques, including examples such as Cochlear,
ResMed and Gene Shears. Biomedical engineering courses at undergraduate, masters and
PhD level are now available in a growing number of universities. Postgraduate research
positions are also growing. Strong research and industry links have been encouraged by CRC
activity.
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Environmental Technologies
Government and private investment in environmental technology is still relatively small, with
only a modest R&D commitment in this area. However, this sector has very high potential,
not only in breakthrough research, but also in refinement of existing technologies.
Fields identified within this area include:
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Waste management: ecosystem solutions (e.g. salinity), modeling and design, land
rehabilitation, bio remediation, recycling, cleaner production, solids, liquids, nuclear,
membrane technologies, and high temperature incineration;
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Renewable/alternate energy: photovoltaics, solar cell technology, ceramic fuel cells,
battery research, biomass production, wind energy, wave energy
The development of areas such as photovoltaics, biomass and wind power will provide
engineers with a number of opportunities in the future. Governments’ emphasis on the
importance of solving the country’s salinity problems may further provide engineers with the
opportunity to create environmental solutions.
New technologies, research and development and new infrastructure to enable more
sophisticated and efficient water management in Australia will also rely on the skills of
engineers. Developments related to water reuse, recycling, catchment management, water
accounting, river renewal, water cycle management and water sensitive urban design.
Agriculture
Agriculture constitutes only 3 percent of Australia’s economy, but garners public sector
spending of 21 percent on Research and Development. This may seem a disproportionate
amount to spend on agriculture but this sector lies at the forefront in emerging areas of
technological activity and provides an important focus for other areas of emerging industrial
and research activity.
While GM crops and production techniques are included in the discussion of biotechnology,
other specific areas of future focus include:
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Agribusiness: Aquaculture (water treatment, fish foods, disease control);
Viticulture; and
Permaculture.
The benefits from investment in local agricultural engineering are significant. However,
there has been a trend for Australian primary producers to adapt imported equipment, rather
than equipment designed to meet their particular needs. This has reduced the efficiency of
primary production. The need is for appropriately directed engineering initiatives to address
the problems of reducing production costs by greater mechanisation. Additional benefits will
arise from the export of equipment.
There is also a renewal of interest in the development of technology for the processing of
food. The range of processes extends from agriculture to biochemical reaction and includes
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the familiar operations of handling, mixing, separation, heating, cooling and process control.
The development of appropriate technology for the preparation and packaging of fragile and
perishable product will continue to present a challenge. This is clearly an area where
Australia has core competencies, which can be built upon to create significant returns to the
country.
Mining Technologies
Apart from manufacturing, the mining, and IT sectors appear to be the priority area of focus
for investment by business. The mining sector is a more mature industry than others, with
high capital costs, made up of mainly global organisations that pursue and capture the
advantages of R&D. This is an area where Australia and Australian influenced companies are
global players and new technologies will offer economic and environmental opportunities.
The major field for future research in the mining industry relates to resource engineering
including:
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new minerals processing technologies (mining and petroleum focus);
mapping, surveying, photogrammetry, cartography; and
remote sensing.
Mining in its many forms and the bulk conveyance of materials are major elements of
Australia’s primary industries infrastructure. However, the trend has been to import items of
mining and other equipment that could have been designed, developed and manufactured in
Australia. The potential benefits of manufacture include:
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the design of equipment would take account of local requirements thereby increasing
it cost effectiveness; and
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equipment proven in the local industry would be better placed to compete in the
international marketplace.
If there is an adequate supply of engineers with the knowledge and skills to carry out the
R&D in this area, and there are numerous organisations with the capacity to convert the R&D
outcomes into marketable products.
Electronics
For electronics, the data on R&D expenditure by socio-economic objective shows that
business undertook a significant proportion of R&D within the IT category. R&D
expenditure by fields of research shows that business sector expenditure was mainly in the
information, computer and communication technologies ($1,382m) (35%), general
engineering ($1,130m) (28%), and applied sciences and technologies ($779m) (20%).
Although this does not necessarily indicate the long run industry application for a particular
new field of research, it clearly indicates where business is placing its priorities, and where
Australian business feels it has the greatest capability for innovation, expansion of existing
markets and entry into new markets. This is also borne out by the CRC data, which indicates
that industry is investing heavily in the engineering and technology field, particularly for IT
applications.
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The following have been identified as areas of future focus:
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Micro machining/ Microelectronics: nanotechnologies (an expected future
manufacturing technology that will make products lighter, stronger, cleaner, less
expensive and more precise), sensors: e.g. for environmental work, computer
componentry (especially for the aerospace and automotive industries) and
miniaturised microscopes; and
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Communications Technologies: photonics and micro electronics
Although there are limited opportunities for Australian involvement in vehicle design, there
are niche opportunities for involvement in the design of automotive parts, which assists in
maintaining the nation’s capability supporting a global industry.
A few multi-national companies dominate the space industry. However, Australia’s defence
purchasing power has attracted investment in local manufacturing. In these areas, Australia
needs to build on its key strengths rather than new technologies.
In the communications technology areas, rapid technological development means markets for
new products and services are being developed all the time. Not only are there new markets,
but these are rapidly growing. Capital costs are relatively low as there is little need for
expensive infrastructure, and product development times are short. Australia has a high
capability in this area, which can be exploited to develop niche areas of expertise, which will
capture a small share of a very large world market, bringing substantial returns to
government.
Deregulation of Australia’s telecommunications network has encouraged R&D into a wide
range of public use communications equipment. This has resulted in a significant expansion
of an industry that previously serviced a very small group of consumers. The expansion has
created a base from which the industry has been able to play an aggressive role in the world
market.
The potential benefits from further investment in this area are significant. The products are
relatively small and are easily transported, and manufacture of the products is largely
automated, lending itself to easy and quick incorporation of new developments. The
attractiveness and high level of feasibility in this sector makes it a suitable target for further
investment, particularly by business.
Signal and image processing is another area with future potential. The technology of signal
and image processing involves the electronic or optical processing of signals from many
possible sources such as speech, telephony, sonar, video, geophysics or medicine in order to
extract or encode information into a more useful form. As such, it is an enabling technology
applicable to a wide variety of industries. Because of the large number of applications areas,
total benefits are large. With a large base of expertise and experience in the field, Australia is
well placed to capture the benefits, mainly through exploitation of some of the many industry
specific niche markets.
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4. Engineering today
When economies with good export performance are examined, not only is there evidence that
technical and engineering education and qualifications are highly valued, but there is also a
high value attached to education overall. Those countries in which engineering related
activities appear to make a particularly important contribution to economic performance are
characterised not only by a strong demand for engineers, but also by developments in
education, industrial research and continuous training.
As outlined, engineers make a significant contribution to creating wealth in a country and
many successful economies have a high number of engineers and technologists. It is
engineers that take new and emerging technologies and create new products, processes or
services.
If Australia is to achieve its full potential as a vital economy it needs to increase its number of
engineers. According to OECD figures, Australia’s stock of human resources in Science and
Technology including engineering has improved over the past ten years, rising from 476,000
in 1996 to 560,000 in 2001, an increase of 17.6% over the five year period.1 In 2000, 19.7%
of new graduates in Australia received science and engineering degrees, compared to 21.7%
of graduates in the OECD2.
A different picture of our international competitiveness begins to emerge however, when this
data is split into science and engineering. While around 11.8% of new graduates in Australia
were awarded science degrees, engineering graduates accounted for only 7.9% of total
graduations in Australia.3
In comparison with other countries, Australia has a low rate of entry into and graduation from
engineering. Internationally, the number of Australia’s engineering graduates per million lags
many other OECD countries including Singapore, Korea, Japan, Finland, Denmark, Taiwan,
Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and
France.4 The graduation of approximately 5000 students from engineering degrees each year,
for the past 10 years, means that the growth in Australia’s science and engineering graduates
has come from increased science enrolments alone.
These data all point to the balance between engineering and science being out of alignment at
a time when we should be as focused on converting ideas into products, as we are on
conducting and publishing research. This is particularly worrying given the engineering and
technology needs of the future. Australia currently needs and will continue to need a strong
engineering workforce in order to compete internationally.
While the emergence of new science and technologies will increase the importance of
engineering skills in the future, so to will the skill shortages we are already experiencing.
Engineering skills shortages facing the minerals, automotive, manufacturing, rail, power and
construction industries will continue to drive demands for engineers.
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5. The future of engineering
Engineers have always found innovative, workable solutions to the world’s problems. During
the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, engineers were the people who designed steam
engines, invented spinning machines, built roads and brought piped water to towns. As a
result of the work of engineers, Australians and the citizens of many other countries are now
living in a largely man-made world where the devices, objects, materials, and systems of
society are all products of engineering enterprise. As the rest of the world steadily moves in
the same direction, the prospects for engineers and the technology they create has never been
so bright.
As globalization becomes part of the “everyday”, there will be an increasing need for
engineering systems to provide global solutions to global problems. Engineered systems will
feature in world commerce as raw materials (grown or mined through highly engineered
technologies), manufactured products, or advanced services dependent upon engineered
systems are traded internationally.
As this economic future unfolds, engineers will also have a central role to play in
understanding nature. Weather, tides, earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions are
already better understood as a result of complex engineering systems for data gathering,
analysis, interpretation, and forecasting and the future may result in engineered interventions
to influence and even control these forces. The concept of sustainability will influence
almost all engineering developments and the potential effects on the environment, long term
and short term, proximate and remote, will be integrated routinely into engineering design
and planning.
Genetics, energy, materials, brain, and information technologies will also be the great
enablers of the future. Sustainability and environmentalism will also drive the types of
systems and projects engineers develop. As each new development of science matures, it is
transformed into effective practice through engineering. Biomedical engineering and
genetics-based technologies including, the work on the human genome, will allow diagnosis
and evaluation of individuals' potential for disease, creating a new boom in medical
technologies as we look for ways to correct, neutralize, or modify undesirable conditions.
The technologies for collecting, organizing, interpreting, and dealing with that genetic
knowledge will drive the creation of information networks and radically improve
epidemiology. Technologies for the manipulation of other living things will also be
developed by engineers including those for controlling pests, enhancing food sources,
expanding and manipulating biota and creating new plant varieties. These advances through
engineering excellence will expand our capacity for sustainable use of the world’s resources
and sustainable growth.
Population growth will have a major effect on future demands for water and power. The
identification of new sources of energy and water and the emergence of improved technology
to increase efficiency while driving down prices, will also be the domains of the future
engineer. Engineering has already brought us highly effective and economically productive
energy sources including water, coal, petroleum, natural gas and nuclear power. As the
future unfolds and the effects of global warming become more evident, engineering will be
called upon to develop new systems to ensue sustainable energy use and conservation.
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Engineers will be the best placed to develop innovative solutions to the problems surrounding
the sustainable use and supply of water and energy resources.
Information technology will be another key driver of the future and while we have already
felt radical changes in society due to its influence, we have barely begun to feel the
transformational consequences of the newest developments, let alone those just over the
horizon. Advances in telecommunications will drop the cost of this technology to the point
that it will be available to everyone, altering radically the way we do business and with who,
where we work, and how we work. These advances will also drive the use of electronic
commerce and raise new social issues, particularly those related to equity and privacy. 5
The possibilities are endless. We might be seeing a future where, through engineering
expertise, cities have become peaceful and serene because cars and buses are whisper quiet;
where vehicles exhaust only water vapour; and parks have replaced unneeded urban
freeways. Living standards have dramatically improved, particularly for the poor and those in
developing countries. Houses are able to pay part of their own mortgage costs by the energy
they produce; there are few if any active landfills; forest cover is increasing world-wide; CO2
levels are decreasing for the first time in 200 years; and the effluent water leaving factories is
cleaner than the water going in.
6. Cross disciplinary demand for science, engineering and technology skills
The impacts of globalization on the engineering profession have challenged what it means to
be an engineer in the 21st century global economy. Many of the future technologies
mentioned in Section 3 will require scientists and engineers to have cross-disciplinary
education backgrounds and approaches to technology. For example, Nanotechnology is
cross-disciplinary in nature, involving the fundamental sciences of physics, chemistry and
biology as well as engineering skills and knowledge. This discipline has a very broad scope,
such as designing the next generation of computing devices, creating innovative materials,
and the development of nanosensors with extremely powerful detection capabilities.
Nanotechnology has the potential to impact on virtually all areas of technology requiring
people with a broad range of knowledge in the sciences as well as the engineering skills in
order to apply this knowledge to produce novel processes or devices. Particularly when
looking at these new fields of endeavor, it is easy to see that in order to be successful, the
engineer of the future is likely to have cross-disciplinary training in two or more fields and to
draw them together through lifelong learning and continuing professional development.
More and more, engineering projects in the real-world represent the combination of diverse
disciplines, rather than the application of a single expertise. Within the university
environment engineers are being increasingly introduced to a broad range of engineering
disciplines. This cross-disciplinary exposure enables them to be versatile and collaborative
team players when they enter the work force. This is all interacting to help engineers to be
comfortable bridging the gap between science, engineering and technology on a day to day
basis.
In the United Kingdom, the increasing need for persons working across inter-disciplinary
boundaries is reinforced from an International Review of Chemistry and Engineering. The
review outlines that the "isolation of engineering research from the basic sciences" has a
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negative impact on the UK's innovative capacity, identifying that a cross-disciplinary
approach to R&D is a key element in the drive to remain internationally competitive in a
rapidly changing world market.
We are only just beginning to see the potential growth for cross disciplinary demand for
science, engineering and technology skills. However, while engineers and scientists will find
themselves more greatly aligned, there will also be an increasing need (which we are already
seeing) to ensure that engineering graduates have cross-disciplinary skills in other “softer”
areas including management, team work and people skills. Engineering courses at Australian
universities are already responding to this need.
7. Conclusion
Engineering is an exciting profession that directly helps to change and improve our world.
Engineers can create imaginative and visionary solutions to the challenges facing the planet
in this new century and beyond. The problems of feeding the world and how we will use
energy but still protect our environment will be answered by engineers. The coming decades
will be a great time to be an engineer, especially a young one. Let’s hope that action is taken
now to ensure that there are enough engineers around to complete the tasks ahead.
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1
Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), Australian Science and Technology at a Glance,
2004, “Chart 65 Australia’s Stock of Human Resources in S&T”, p74.
2
DEST, Australian Science and Technology at a Glance, 2004, “Chart 71 Australia’s Science and Engineering
Graduates”, p80.
3
DEST, Australian Science and Technology at a Glance, 2004 ,“Chart 73 Science and Engineering Degrees as a
Percentage of Total New Degrees”, p82.
4
Engineers Australia and the Council of Engineering Deans, The Engineering Profession: a statistical overview,
2003, Edition 3.
5
“ Engineering and the Future of Technology”, Joseph E. Coates in The Bridge, a publication of the National
Academy of Engineering, Volume 27, Number 3, Autumn 1997.
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