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Careers As A Mechanical Engineer

The word Engineer covers a very wide range of disciplines. If you've chosen to explore training in Automotive and/or Aeronautical Engineering, it's likely you're looking for a technical challenge and an exciting career. In the UK, the aerospace industry competes on the world stage, and is a front runner in scientific and technological developments. With regard to the automotive sector Britain also plays a significant role here, with several hundred thousand people being involved in the industry.

Courses Of Repute

Training in the UK is excellent - in fact there are over thirty British universities offering aeronautical engineering based courses alone. Plus some go on to provide postgraduate-level study as well. Diplomas and other vocational certifications are also available from some colleges. Degree courses can be studied with or without an industrial placement year. Engineering departments often have good links with industry for gaining work experience.

Those who need the facility to work alongside their study programme may find they can do a sandwich course. The Armed Forces and certain private companies will sponsor students to qualify in both of these disciplines, in exchange for an agreed period of working time. Whatever your circumstances and ambitions, look into as many training alternatives as possible.

Auto Engineering

This area involves everything to do with the production of motorised vehicles. The automotive engineer's skills are tested right from the initial design concepts. There's a lot to take on board, and new technologies are being developed all the time - often to deal with government environmental standards.

We can split auto engineering into product or design engineering, development engineering and manufacturing engineering. Product or design engineers will first design all the parts and test them to make sure they perform properly. The second discipline is covered by development engineers, who engineer all the features of the vehicle. They may stipulate certain requirements to the design engineers. With all the design and development work complete, the manufacturing engineers have to build the vehicle.

An automotive engineering student will be taught many product disciplines. Subjects will include performance, ergonomics, emissions, fuel economy, aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics to name but a few. There are also very strict regulations to be learned and adhered to in safety engineering.

Whilst each individual system has to perform its job properly, it also has to complement the rest of the vehicle. Thus students will be taken through aspects of development or systems engineering. Development engineers have to look at tradeoffs to gain an acceptable level of performance in all areas. Development engineering is also concerned with testing and ensuring the finished vehicle will comply with legal requirements.

Following on from the product and development stages, comes the processes needed for manufacturing. Automotive manufacturing engineers plan both the building of the component parts and the entire vehicle. Tasks include equipment design and machine specifications as well as people layout and management.

The Aerospace Industry

Aeronautical engineers are involved in the research, design, manufacture and maintenance of all forms of aircraft. Individuals interested in aeronautical engineering must be intelligent self starters with the capacity for analytical, innovative and technical thought processes. Only those who relish a challenge should consider a career in aeronautics. (Formula One design engineers use aerospace technology as well, if that appeals to you).

Contemporary flight vehicles must endure very severe conditions such as differences in temperature and atmospheric pressure. Due to the complexity of flight vehicle development and design, it would be impossible to learn enough about all the technologies involved, so teams of engineers deal in their own specialisations.

With a strong emphasis on analytics, training will include all aspects of design, materials, forces and integration of systems. Modules that deal with solving problems, like thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, are what we mean by analytical subjects. Much of what you will learn is based on theoretical mathematics, but empirical testing also comes into it - admittedly largely in the form of simulations. Nonetheless, university students will still benefit from wind-tunnel experiments and other physical testing methods.

When training to be an engineer you need a lot of practical design experience. Both BEng and MEng degree courses will incorporate practical project work to be carried out in teams. Aeronautical and Automotive Student Engineers are often also taught a variety of soft skills that will be useful for their career. Subjects to choose from might include European languages, presentation skills and teamwork.

The UK aerospace industry attracts the very best graduates, and the work is both compelling and highly remunerated. For information about joining a professional body upon completion of your training, refer to the Engineering Council, or SARTOR (the Standards and Routes to Registration).