Industry sheds old-hat image
2 Oct 2006
For the UK-wide survey, over 1000 people were asked for their mental images of industry. While those over 45 years old tended to think of smokestacks and coal mines, noise and grime, the under 30s summoned up images of computers, success, money and technology.
Overall, the most popular 'industry' word associations were 'factory' (27%), followed by 'money' (20%), 'decline' (12%), 'busyness' (6%) and 'computers' (6%). The older the respondent the less 'money' tended to be associated with industry, said AMEC.
Asked whether they thought UK industry was doing better or worse than 30 years ago, 54% of all respondents said it was doing worse, 33% better, while among the 16-24 age group, 79% believed that UK industry is doing better.
This trend was repeated when people were asked about their perceptions of jobs in industry. Overall, 42% said jobs in industry are ‘very or quite high quality’, whereas 67% of 16-24 year olds thought the quality of jobs in industry is ‘very good’.
The survey also picked up some significant regional differences in attitudes. People in Wales were more likely to associate 'coal mines' with industry than in other regions, while Londoners were more likely to think of 'money'.
The meaning of the word 'industry' is changing faster than most of us imagined, said Will Hutton, chief executive of the Work Foundation research consultancy: “What is striking from these results is that the attitudes of older people towards industry — all those mental pictures of production lines and strikes — mean absolutely nothing to younger people who did not live through the 1970s and early 80s.”
Younger people are clearly recognising that industry is more about computer screens today than hard hats, commented Sir Peter Mason, chief executive of AMEC. This is “good news - because we are still very short of new graduates in engineering science and technology. Moreover, as these graduates enter the workplace, they will reshape industrial relations, as their expectations of their careers will be quite different.”
AMEC, the Work Foundation and the Sunday Times are jointly organizing the Best of British Industry Awards — a new initiative to highlight leading UK industrial companies.
