Gordon Brown given a battering by civil engineers

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Gordon Brown has taken a hammering with 75% of respondents to NCE's exclusive civil engineering survey saying he was not doing a good job overall. In particular the management of the economy, transport and of energy were singled out as poorly managed by government.

The NCE/Autodesk survey was completed during August and September this year and gives a unique insight into the attitudes and issues within the profession. As the first of a regular series of surveys, it should provide valuable benchmarks to help the industry to improve businesses to plan for the future careers and opportunities.

And according to the results of the survey, a fifth of civil and structural engineers are no longer actually now involved in any design-related activity.

However, the survey, which attracted over 1900 responses from across the profession, also pointed out that some 85% of respondents were very happy in their current role with only 23% looking to change employer in the next 12 months.

This despite the fact that 30% said they had no clear career path, 14% reported having had no pay rise in the last 12 months and another 46% said they had had increases of less than 5% over the year.

Huge backing is given by civil engineering professionals to both the construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK and the construction of the Severn tidal barrage. But there is less support for road user charging amongst the profession with just 45% believing this to be an effective means to tackle congestion.

Labour's record on tackling climate change was also felt to be poor, however 16% said they thought it actually too late to do anything about this issue.

Perhaps reassuringly though, 76% of respondents said that they were actively doing something to reduce their carbon footprint, with measures taken including using the car less and driving slower, changing to energy efficient lighting, improving home insulation, working from home and recycling.

The survey was split into sections to find out about civil engineers' lives and to tackle and gauge your opinions on your work, your careers, your industry and the wider political world. The following pages take you through the results section by section.

And while some of the responses were perhaps predictable - that civil engineers still believe the profession is undervalued, for example - many others responses give genuine new insight into the collective mind of the profession.

For example, 45% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the industry was a better place to work than it was five years ago and 86% said that they would recommend civil engineering as a career.

However, only 29% agreed that the industry offered a good work life balance compared to 39% who agreed. Perhaps as a results 40% said that they would consider changing career with alternatives ranging from law, medicine and journalist to becoming a farmer, teacher or voluntary worker.

And while 48% said they thought the industry was more efficient that it was five years ago, a huge 76% agreed that more had to be invested in research and innovation. Yet only 19% rated innovation as the most important factor in the design process.

But although the survey highlighted that 19% of civil and structural engineers were no longer involved in design related activity, it was perhaps reassuring to see that technical issues still ranked as the most time consuming part of your work.

View the full survey results here