Precision engineering in the UK has taken some big hits in the last 30 years, but despite all the battering it has received from numerous sources, it remains one of the most important industries the country has to offer.
The last few decades has seen the decimation and decline of some areas of engineering in this country, such as the automotive industry, shipbuilding and large scale manufacturing. Huge, important companies have disappeared from the map, and previously thriving areas of the country, such as the Midlands and the North East, have taken immense knocks as one large employer after another falls by the wayside. The employment holes that these closures have left have been very difficult for communities to recover from, but as people find other sources of income, the engineering skills and knowledge that are lost can never be recovered.
However, precision engineering in the UK is nothing if not adaptable, and there are still enough companies working in this important sector to keep the country as one of the major players in the global engineering market. Indeed, because of the intense pressure that it has been under, the industry has become much more...