THE
FUTURE
IS T-SHAPED
The complex and multi-disciplinary nature of engineering
projects means that a new type of engineer may be required.
But how can those future talents be found and developed?
For at least a century, engineering
was a profession that featured
clearly delineated disciplines.
A mechanical engineer was
distinct from an electrical engineer, who
was in turn distinct from an electronic or
civil engineer, etc, etc. These delineations
were, and remain, refl ected in the many
and varied engineering institutions that
exist in the UK – from your own IED to
IMechE, IEE, ICE and so forth.
Of course, it has never been quite as
clear cut as all that. Different disciplines
have always had to cross over on certain
projects and polymath engineers have
always existed. However, for many years it
was a rule of thumb that engineers tended
to remain within their specialisms for most
of their career. More recently, however,
these boundaries have begun to erode.
The increasing complexity of projects has
meant that levels of collaboration have had
to increase, followed inevitably by greater
cross-disciplinary understanding. Equally,
as demand for engineers has increasingly
come to outstrip supply, there has been
a concomitant requirement for existing
engineers to master technologies outside
their traditional comfort zones.
This has led to the rise of what is known
as the ‘T-shaped engineer’. The idea of
T-shaped skills was fi rst mentioned by David
Guest in a 1991 article (‘The hunt is on
for the Renaissance Man of computing,’
The Independent), discussing the future of
computer jobs, and then championed as an
approach to hiring the right talent ,in order
to build inter-disciplinary teams that can
come together to create new ideas.
Essentially, the T-shaped concept is a
metaphor for the depth and breadth that
an individual has in relation to skills. The
vertical bar on the ‘T’ represents the depth
of related skills and expertise in a single
fi eld, whereas the horizontal bar represents
a breadth of skills and the ability to
collaborate across disciplines with experts
in other areas and to apply knowledge in
areas of expertise other than one’s own.
For engineers, this means not only
possessing deep, technical skills, but
also having broader attributes – such as
empathy, communication skills, teambuilding
and equally the ability to collaborate – or
these essential ‘soft skills’.
One enthusiastic advocate of an
increasing emphasis on such multidisciplinary
skills is Pete Lomas FREng
HonFIED, the IED’s President, designer of
the original hardware for the Raspberry
Pi, and director of systems engineering
at electronic design and manufacturing
SME, Norcott Technologies. “I think now,
as an engineering society, we’re looking for
T-shaped people, who have a breadth of
knowledge, but also a depth of knowledge
in one particular
specialism,” he
says. “Projects
are no longer just
about electronics, or
mechanical engineering
or pouring concrete. They
have a cross-disciplinary
aspect to them. For instance,
buildings in downtown Tokyo have
earthquake countermeasures that involve
structural design, mechanical actuators and
computer control systems all working in
harmony to provide a solution.”
This type of engineer increasingly
represents the future and is something
he is keen to encourage. “I’m seeing lots
of exciting developments coming up, but,
in the main, all the really game-changing
products are going to be created by these
cross-disciplinary teams. “It really needs all
those facets to be brought together to
make a world-beating product.”
That doesn’t mean an end to singledisciplinary
engineering. “If you’re an
out- and-out electronics engineer and that’s
what you are passionate about ,then that
specialism is equally valid and critically
develops the state of the art in that
discipline,” he says. “However, particularly
in SMEs like here at Norcott, I need what
I call ‘cross-threaded people’. I’ve have an
electronics engineer right now tinkering
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