Scientists and engineers almighty

Any lingering doubts about career opportunities in science and engineering should have been well and truly dispelled by developments of the past few weeks.

The UK process sector, for example, can now count the Prince of Wales among its numbers, following Prince Charles’ opening of a new biomethane-to-grid plant this week in Dorset.

Much further afield, China’s newly appointed leader Xi Jinping is a qualified chemical engineer having studied chemical engineering in the 1970s at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University.

Xi’s academic background should help in talks with certain other world leaders, such as German chancellor Angela Merkel, who studied physics at the University of Leipzig and has a doctorate in quantum physics.

Expect communications on an even higher level from Justin Welby, who, for 11 years, held senior roles the oil industry - at Elf Aquitaine in Paris and Enterprise Oil in London, where he was involved in North Sea projects.

That was before his calling to the Church of England, which he is soon to lead as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Seems not even the sky is the limit for people working in the process industries.