In this episode of The SAFE Leader Podcast, Dr Mark McBride-Wright sits down with Paul Bailey, Chief Executive Officer of the Engineering Council, to explore what it truly means to lead with authenticity in today’s engineering world. From his early career influences to his reflections on trust, ethics, and inclusion, Paul shares insights into how values-driven leadership shapes teams and builds confidence across the profession.
Together, Mark and Paul discuss the evolving role of engineers in society as stewards of sustainability, as standard-bearers for professional integrity, and as compassionate leaders in a post-Covid world. Whether you’re an aspiring engineer or an experienced professional, this conversation will leave you inspired to lead with empathy, clarity, and purpose.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:02
Welcome to the next episode of the start recording again. Oh, it’s recording right, that’s fine. Elio, can edit that, right? Hello. I’m your host. Mark McBride-Wright, welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. And I’m joined today by Paul Bailey. Hi.
Paul Bailey 0:28
Paul Bailey, I usually just stop that. Sorry. I normally just go straight into all i
Paul Bailey 0:46
It’s still recording, isn’t it, right? It looks like
Mark McBride-Wright 0:52
Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Paul Bailey, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Engineering Council, the UK’s regulatory body for the engineering profession, with a degree in physics from the University of Manchester and a background in aerospace and aviation, Paul is a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a member of the Institute of Physics before becoming CEO, Paul served as Deputy CEO and Operations Director at the Engineering Council for over eight years following his earlier role as Deputy CEO at the Royal Aeronautical Society. He now leads the organization staff team and represents the Engineering Council across numerous national and international partnerships, championing professional standards, registration and the role of engineering in society. Paul is committed to fostering public trust in engineering and empowering the profession to be safe, ethical and inclusive. Paul, welcome.
Paul Bailey 2:01
Thank you, Mark. Yeah, thanks devil so much, and thank you for the kind introduction. Great to be here.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:06
Wow, those three words, safe, ethical and inclusive. I mean, that’s that’s just got this podcast written all over it. So, yeah, great to have you. So let’s we always like starting off with finding out a bit about the person in front of us, finding about your motivations, your younger self. You know what inspired you? So it sounds like you’ve got an engineering background more or less yourself as well, sort of STEM technical background. So let’s go back in time and find out about the younger Paul, did you always know what you wanted to be when you were older? What were your inspirations when you were younger?
Paul Bailey 2:49
So well, inspiration and career choice, I guess, up to the age of 13, it was all about wanting to open the back for England. But that soon became apparent that wasn’t going to happen. So sorry, wanting to open a bank of England. Wanted to open the bat in cricket through England. That was that was the dream mark, that was the aspiration. And when it became clear that wasn’t going to quite work out, I was lucky enough to have a real passion for STEM, particularly science, particularly physics. Okay, so I’ve managed to get myself into this wonderful world of engineering. It’s been more more luck than judgment. Completely more luck than judgment. I had a great physics teacher at school, and I was lucky enough to study at that degree level. And physics has never been that far away from engineering. Really, I don’t there’s a maxim out there that scientists dream about doing great things, what engineers do them. I don’t quite subscribe to that, but it’s probably not a million miles from the truth. I was very much into theoretical physics. Really enjoyed that so and I still, you know, I still read physics books now as a leisurely pursuit. I still have that passion. So, yeah, so I went from physics, left school, went lucky enough to go to university and started work at an organization, is that the airport that dealt with rotables, which are serviceable, repairable components for aircraft. Oh, okay, okay, so that’s where I got to the aerospace and aviation world. And then I made probably the most important jump in my life. I applied for the job at Royal Aeronautical Society, which is the learning society for aviation. Aerospace you’ve come across, I’m sure you’ve probably done a lot of work with them, great organization. And that’s where engineering kind of came into view. The Royal aerostat is fantastic. The breadth of activities they do. There’s aviation or aviation medicine, there’s pilots, but clearly there’s a lot of aerospace engineering as well. And that’s where I started to learn a lot about aerospace engineering. And. And then I went to the Engineering Council. And this is where it gets embarrassing mark. I went to the Engineering Council as a senior executive for higher education. I then went back to the royal era as Deputy CEO. You can see where this is going. And then I went back to the Engineering Council as Deputy CEO, and I was fortunate enough to be given the job as CEO two and a half years ago. So yeah, I’ve stayed in this space for best part of 30 years, and absolutely love it.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:25
So when you were doing physics, then tell us a bit about your experience of doing physics at Manchester. You study that, right? Yeah. So we’re fresh out of hosting our engineering talent awards, equal engineers, engineering talent awards in Manchester last week. So tell us about being a student in Manchester. And also, you know, physics is a sort of gateway subject for engineers. And I was speaking to the Institute of Physics last week, they’ve got a new report out looking at like the reduction in number of physics teachers, and that I’m going to get these statistics wrong, something like only 70% of schools that do physics are given 30% of the student outreach, or the students into the funnel, or it’s the other way around. I can’t remember, but there’s, there’s, there’s something where there. It’s almost like a risk, a risk issue, you know, like STEM subjects being taught by non STEM teachers, non physics teachers, how I’m asking you a ton of questions here in Arno, what I’m interested to know, how you’ve seen the sort of, what was the diversity of your course like back then, given that as a gateway subject, and have you seen things change in general? Are you seeing things change in engineering?
Paul Bailey 6:47
Yeah, yeah. That’s a that’s that’s the really interesting question mark, and a really timely one, because as a group of us, our cohort, in my year, we managed to stumble upon the graduation video of all things for our right? Wow, and it was on YouTube. Yeah, it was pretty great, as you can imagine. But what was really interesting is it really hammered home. We knew this at the time they were about, I’m going to guess probably about 250 young people on our course. I think there were about 10 women, and that was borne out by revisiting the graduation again. Have things changed? I think, certainly going to right direction. I was pleased to hear, I think was last week, Tom grinlier, CEO Institute physics, declared that there were more young women studying physics a level physics than ever, and that numbers increases. So that’s, that’s, that’s a real good news item, but clearly more needs to be done. So what change have I seen? Probably not too much, but it sounds as though changes afoot. And I think it’s, it will have a responsibility to really kind of help, help that continuous, same trajectory, really so, but no certainly back in you can ask a question about what was, you know, studied in Manchester in the early 90s. I probably won’t go into too much detail on that, but it’s a great deal of fun. Great University, great city study. But yeah, in terms of, in terms of the diversity of my year, yeah, not great. Not great, as I
Mark McBride-Wright 8:20
recall early 90s Manchester. Isn’t that like when Oasis was sort of forming, and Nolan Liam Gallagher would have been walking around, and it was, it
Paul Bailey 8:31
was, it was a great time Mark. It was a great but it’s a fact. I mean, it’s fantastic. University had a fantastic physics department. I mean, not withstanding to Manchester. This is where rudford split the ass. And this is, you know, it has a great heritage, great history for physics. And I was lucky enough to end up going there.
Mark McBride-Wright 8:51
It was called the Manchester School of Technology. Was it back then?
Paul Bailey 8:59
The Yeah, there were, there was so Manchester University, perhaps, as we know it now, was called the Victoria University of Manchester, and there was umis, which was that said University Institute of Science and Technology. I hope I’ve got that right, but that was the two places,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:16
yeah, that that still existed when I started my degree, because we did Frank Martin’s. The thing that chemical engineers do every year is that undergraduates, like a sort of sports get together. Yeah, that was, it was still called, you missed back in 2006 which would have been the year that I did it. But then, yeah, it changed. So if we talk a bit about the role of so you’ve, you’ve you’ve had a pseudo squiggly career, sort of, or a ping pong career, ping pong career pinball, you know, moving moving up there to where you’re at. Now, were there any mentors or advisors, coaches, people that helped you? You along the way. What role has seeking out help played in your ping pongy route to now?
Paul Bailey 10:10
Yeah, two. I mean, two mentors really spring to mind, actually. And of course, because I’ve only been the royal errors in the Engineering Council. It’s not too difficult sometimes to pin down perhaps who I’m even talking about. But one of one of my bosses early in my career taught me a lot about authenticity. Okay, and this individual was very much authentic, very much is a man and stayed true to his core values. And perhaps what I saw in the way he was authentic is that he made life easy for himself. If that makes sense, he didn’t have to put on any mask or any new face. He was always been authentic, because he had these core values and core beliefs, and he stayed and he stayed true to them. And so it made his it made his work in life, and he became a good friend office, but it made his work in life and his decision making seemingly very straightforward, yeah, because he didn’t have to grapple with almost like any sort of inner demons or in a turmoil, because he had his beliefs, had his values, and therefore, I’m sure it wasn’t as plain salient as it seemed to be, yeah, but he seemed to make decision making very easy. And that authenticity being that authentic, that just kind of developed the whole deal of trust in Him, and these actions and activities that kind of pervaded the whole organization, you know, he was, he was very good at that, and we felt that we could trust him. We felt that we could admit our mistakes and work with him. So, yeah, that authentic piece, being yourself. I learned that very on my career, and to be honest, Mark I, you know, I still carry that through, and I still have that individual on my shoulder a lot of the time. Am I being really true to my core beliefs and values here? Am I being authentic, or am I really peddling hard to almost be someone I’m not? If that makes sense,
Mark McBride-Wright 12:20
yeah, no, totally, totally. It helps remove a whole bunch of fillers that you may have to have on if you’re inauthentic or not showing up. We can have different versions of ourselves, obviously, for different situations, but that’s just having a range of emotion, I guess, isn’t it? And that being as close to who you are innately and would naturally react or be in a situation whilst being professional as well, is is, yeah, it’s a good it’s a good personal benefit, I guess, of adopting an inclusive leadership approach and being accessible to teams and your colleagues.
Paul Bailey 13:10
I like that, but yeah, being, yeah, absolutely that accessible pieces that that that was very important, and that remains a key pillar, if you like, of my leadership and managing people and dealing with people. You know it’s the old adage. And I think staff at the Engineering Council probably get bored of this, but it’s that old adage of, what can I do to help all the time, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of my job. What can I do to help? And I think I was, I picked up another point. I actually a CEO from one of the engineer institutions, taught me recently as well about, you know, one of the roles of being a CEO and a leader is to help clear the rubble out the way, which I really liked as well. Really like that, you know, that is, that is the role. You know, when CEOs, we’re not all sat here in company armchairs waiting to be called upon to clear the rubble clearly, but that, that whole mindset in there and always, what can I do to help what can I do to help you make your job happy, to be more effective in your job with us, day to day, week to week. So, yeah, I learned a great place, a great deal of stock, in those two kind of approaches.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:14
The analogy I heard on that was I like the CEO I spoke to, was I like removing roadblocks. So, so maybe it depends on the type of engineering institution you’re in in terms of what the the object
Paul Bailey 14:27
is. That’s true, yeah, yeah. I haven’t given too much away by referring to rubble. I don’t think I ever think I’m all right.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:35
No, no. So tell us where I mean the Engineering Council people. I sometimes I’m too quick to make the assumption that people know the intricacies of the UK engineering landscape between the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering UK and the Engineering Council and professional engineering institutions and. I find myself sometimes when I’m just monologuing or saying lots of points and this big tapestry of interconnection and influence. Actually, some people just Whoa. You need to go back to basics. I’ve never heard those organizations. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m new to all of this. So can you just unpack for us a bit the landscape what the Engineering Council does, and therefore, yeah, your
Paul Bailey 15:25
role within that, yeah, it’s, I mean, you’re absolutely right, and we’ve known each other a long time, Mark, and I know you’re on standard landscape, you’re absolutely right. It is complex, and that that can create issues, of course, in trying to draw people in, into the professional community, perhaps because there are so many organizations involved. So I’m going to do my best to kind of boil it down. So I’m going to try and use, I’m going to try and not upset anyone here, but I’m going to try and use one or two word terms to describe what these organizations do. So for the Engineering Council. I mean, we’re the regulatory body. We’re the regulator for the engineering profession. And if you were to distill down what we do on a day to day, week to week basis, we set standards. We maintain a register of registered engineers and technicians, and thirdly, we license institutions, professional engineering institutions, PEIS to carry out our work. There are less than 40 staff at the Engineering Council, and we have a, you know, we have a tremendously important role in in terms of registering, assessing individuals, registration, accrediting degree programs, approving training courses. We can’t do that all by ourselves. We don’t have the time, space, the bandwidth, and, frankly, nowhere near the capability, given the breadth of the profession. So we license engineering institutions to do that on our behalf. There are 40 engineering institutions in the UK now, I’d imagine mark, even with your understanding of the engineering community, that might even come a surprise to you, because that number just seems to go up every every this seems to increase every year, but it’s now 40. Okay, one of the challenges for the Engineering Council is just ensuring that there’s some consistency of approach among the 40 institutions, yeah, in terms of how they assess individuals, in terms of how they credit degree. So there’s a, there’s a quality assurance space there, yeah, which is an interesting challenge in itself. Sidebar comment, it’s fantastic working with those 40 Indian institutions. I mean, again, that’s the reason why stick around in this space. They’re just, they’re just fantastic organizations to what they truly are. So there, then you’ve got that the PIs, the pressure and engineering institutions, which represent hundreds of 1000s of engineers and technicians, not all registered, but in a huge amount of people working in the profession. So Engineering Council, engineering institutions, quick sidebar, no, I’m not doing this in order of priority, just in case anyone case anyone gets upset out there. And then you have our wonderful colleagues at engineering UK, who we worked with for a number of years. Been a quick history lesson. We used to be one organization, then we bifurcated into the Engineering Council and into the UK. Engineering UK, look promote engineering as a creative young people, right? And they do a fantastic job with that. And they have tremendous breadth. They do it so much in the same space. They really do fantastic organization. You then have the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is the kind of the policy center, if you like, I’m doing a huge disservice there, because, again, it’s fantastic institution with some fantastic fellows Academy there, but they’re almost the lightning rod, if You like, mark for government, yeah, and the institutions all are all, all of our institutions, including the Engineering Council, we, to some degree on the policy side, we remain in orbit around the Royal Academy of Engineering, okay, because of the policy work they do and the policy work they do now is deployed by the National Engineering Policy Center, the nepc, yeah. So there we go. I mean, on the back of three minutes, there’s probably a myriad number of institutions there already, and there are many others doing some fantastic work as well, particularly on the stem side, yeah. And the challenge for all of us is just cohering all this great work together. It does work. We manage to, I truly believe we managed to maintain this healthy tension at times between the organizations. We got some clear delineation in terms of the extent of our duties and responsibilities. It it works the Professional Engineer Engineer community works, and it works because we talk a lot. Well, yeah, we work a lot together. Have
Mark McBride-Wright 20:03
to be connected. It all comes down to people connections as well, doesn’t it? And relationship building can tell us a bit about the work you’ve been doing for the international community, with with engineers working overseas. You’ve you’ve been doing some partnership. Partnership development is one of your one it was one of the things in your biography there, and so I was just interested in what you’ve been doing with international partnerships. Yeah. I mean,
Paul Bailey 20:32
we have a written duty in our in our duties and our Royal Charter duties with regards to our international activities, in particularly in terms of promoting and facilitating international mobility. 20% which is a pretty silly number, 20% of our of our registrants on our register reside overseas, not necessarily overseas nationals, but they reside overseas. And that number has been pretty steady state for the last few years. So one in five on our register reside overseas. The great headline activity for us over the last 18 months is confirming a mutual recognition agreement with the US. Yeah, yes, that’s what I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah, which has been several years in the making. It’s an MRA, a mutual recognition agreement that’s been cited in the new government’s trade strategy, which we’re over the moon about. Oh, great. Clearly, government are looking towards Mrs. A way of facilitating agreements and mobility. But this has been a it’s been a fantastic exercise. Mark, it’s I perhaps unfairly, have presented the challenge of this particular MRA as the Federated States of the US meeting the federated PEIS. Right? Again, 40 PE is 50 states American. But it’s worked tremendously. So now we’ve already, institutions have already started to register engineers, professional engineers, capital P, capital E, from the US. And we have our chartered engineers going the other way, and we’ve done that under the auspices of department, business and trade, DBT. So that’s been a fantastic experience as well. But that’s that’s been a real headlight. I think for the last 12 months, I’ve been going around and talking to all and sundry, and one of the first things I always talk about is, have you heard of this? Ma, MRA, we managed to get across the line so we’re, yeah, we’re tremendously proud of it.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:32
That’s great. And how, how do you think you’ll have all of the states signed up at some point?
Paul Bailey 22:41
That’s, I knew you were going to ask that question. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s the A we got 29 right? We’re up to 29 there. Whereas, you know, a lot of the lots of respect have that clearly have their own systems, and they have their own levels of governance to get this sort of thing through, yeah, and that presents a challenge for them in terms of timings, but that’s the aspiration. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I’m thrilled to see on the likes of LinkedIn, on a regular basis, newly registered engineers both sides declaring how happy they are with it all. So it’s been a real success for us. But yeah, there’s more to do. There is more to do.
Mark McBride-Wright 23:25
Will that mean it’s easier for employers to what in a practical way? What does that mean for the individuals and for organizations that are wanting to employ them?
Paul Bailey 23:38
It’s just, it’s just a really readable means of validating that person’s competence and commitment. And if, for example, an American engineer, a US engineer, rather, wants to come over and work in the UK for any UK firms and organizations that want that validation of competence and commitment, ie, they want a chartered engineer, yeah, being able to come across and present their credentials as a professional engineer, yeah, and get that, get that registration, will be more straightforward procedurally.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:09
Yeah, no, definitely. I remember, well, I mean, I’ve just come back from living in New York State for for a year, and yeah, that, that, having that PNG, as it’s called over in the US, after your name, at the time, for me, it would have required, like, doing more exams, or like retraining, and it’s just, it just completely put you off so you end up, you know, not being an engineer, in terms of, like, your Your your employment, or that there’s a real barrier, a real barrier to
Paul Bailey 24:44
to, well, that’s what it is. Mark, yeah, it’s facilitating mobility. We’re moving barriers. And that is, that is a role. I mean, I talk about the Engineering Council settings, setting standards, run and register, licensing institutions. But you know, a lot of our international work is right. Tapping that that’s all about facilitating mobility. There are other agreements with other jurisdictions around the world. That’s always an interesting challenge as well. We’ve, you know, we’ve been looking to work with India, Australia as well. So they’re all in development. So we’re very excited about that. But at the end of the day, it’s about providing mobility for engineers and technicians.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:20
Yeah, that is that. That is exciting. That is exciting. So where do you see professional registration evolving?
Paul Bailey 25:34
It’s it’s going to have to it’s going to have to involve, it needs to evolve, particularly in light of the fact we need, we need to do more in terms of encouraging people to become registered. So clearly, that’s that’s the kind of challenge number one, really. At the moment, we have over 220,000 engineers and technicians on our register, against a engineering population of X million, right, right? So our market penetration is not there. So it needs to evolve. It needs to stay relevant and adapt. We need, we the engineer Council. We need to continue to provide standards, develop our standards that are contemporary, staying in pace with with the profession. Yeah, we, I say we routinely review our standard. We do so we look to review our standard every five years. But a lot can happen in five years. Yeah, clearly. So I think one of the challenges of registration is having a standard that is contemporary, having a process of registration that is agile, that is again all about removing barriers. Doesn’t present any barriers to anyone when to become registered. And there is a diversity aspect there, yeah, give an example there. One of the pieces of work we’ve done the last two years, which we’re tremendously proud of, is the work the guidance we’ve done on neurodiversity, okay, providing guidance for new neurodiverse applicants. Fantastic piece of work. And again, the guidance we’re very proud of, but again, just making sure there are no barriers there, keeping pace with the profession, keeping pace with society and society’s expectations, whilst at same time, being very mindful that, you know, we need to have standards that protect the public and safeguard society. Yeah, so I guess the short answer probably the real short, pithy answer mark in terms of professional registration. It’s about relevance, yeah, keeping keeping pace. And that involves listening. That involves drawing people into the Engineering Council in a relatively well. We can’t we as an organization, can’t be we used to be known, I think it’s just before my time. We used to be known as the kind of policeman from Holborn, because we used to have offices in Holborn. I don’t like the idea of people not almost getting a glimpse behind the cloak of regulation and Engineering Council. We we’re never going to get buy in from registrants, non registrants, employers, industry, if we can’t open ourselves up as a regulator. Yeah. And the example that is when we develop our standards, which we predominantly do for the engineering institutions, but we should do through others as well. You know, this is where we think the standard is going to be going. Have you got this right? Can you help us in terms of what the horizon might look like in 510, years time?
Mark McBride-Wright 28:35
It’s, it’s, I’ve started illustrating more of my points that I make in my in my training by actually taking screenshot of the standards where the words diversity, inclusion, etc appear, because there it is, you know, it’s, it’s, and actually what was, well, it wasn’t surprising. It was, it was illuminating, I guess, was that some, some, some recent workshop participants didn’t actually realize that it was there. And so that what I love about the fact that in the most recent update round, that that’s what’s manifested, is that I can show a clear line of connection between this isn’t just let’s do it because it’s nice, it’s actually in the standard. It’s in the competency and commitment requirements. So therefore, by supporting and showing and enabling time for your employees or graduates or apprentices to attend X, Y and Z and take part in mentoring, it helps them achieve their their their piece. The one thing I think, and I believe I’ve heard that this is going to be happening more in the future, is then, once you become chartered, that continuing professional development, the enforcement is a strong word, I know, but that coming. Out, and maybe this is where the policing kind of context came from before. But there is still a feeling sometimes that, okay, tech got my chartership, right? Well, I’m never going to see them again. Off I go, you know, I’ll just pay my fees each year, and that’s it. But, you know, I love the stick, I guess that I’ve got with some some of my participants. I’m like, Look, you might be getting a random spot check, an audit to check your CPD log and validate if you’re keeping up to speed with how this has changed since you did your assessment X number of years ago, you know. And that’s why we’ve invested at equal engineers like my safe leader training. We’ve actually had that certified for CPD hours, so that the participants can get a certificate that says, I have done 12 hours of training, of CPD certified training in that if they ever were to be audited by any of the 40 PEIS, they could then have some evidence against that, you know, requirement in terms of dedication to dei and how culture is changing, and what it means for safety and workplace risk and hazard management. Yeah,
Paul Bailey 31:17
I think that’s a really good example mark what we’ve tried to do over the recent years. I mean, we have UK spec that our standard, the UK standard Professional Engineering competence. And there’s 1c in that acronym. That’s the C for competence and our job. No doubt, I’m sure we’ll talk about integrity of the regimen. Integrity means that to me and to the Engineering Council, but ensuring everyone on that register is competent is absolutely, is absolutely our primary concern. But actually, there’s two C’s. There’s competence and commitment. There’s 2c actually in iteration. I think I’ve seen references now to UK spec, where the acronym is UK SPCC point across of commitment, because that brings in the CPD element, because it’s talking to your point. It’s not a static qualification. That’s not static title, it’s not static credential. By becoming registered, you should have demonstrated your commitment to maintain your professional development, your commitment to the profession. Yeah, really. And that’s, that’s, that’s so important, because the world’s moving a fairly quick old lick, as we know. But actually it means that you are, you understand that it’s a it’s a vital component of being registered, of being an engineer, that you need to be aware of the work, where of the world around you have changing, and the profession in particular, I mean, it’s you know when that so you know when we revising this, when we began to revise the standards seven, eight years ago. Ai, for example, I’m picking a very obvious example, but you know, AI machine learning wasn’t, probably wasn’t the consideration. And here we are now talking about AI machine learning digital technologies in the context of the not only the standard, but our processes for regulation, our process is registration. So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s really hit off at a fell asleep, all of this.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:27
So when is the next update then, when is the next update schedule? Yes, I’ll
Paul Bailey 33:31
probably be accused now of leaving you that question. We’re in that we’re in the starting when the blocks of it now it’s going the nuclear standards, going to be released next year. Oh, right, okay, okay. And again, that’s a good example of the sort of what you do at the Engineering Council, where we rely on the engineering institutions and others. I should say, you know, I still think of the Engineering Council. We say this a lot to news artists for the Engineering Council, read the Council of engineer institutions. That’s how we see ourselves, that’s how we govern ourselves. That’s how we work together. So, for example, updating our standards. We work with the engine institutions, the Royal Academy, equal engineers as well. I know we sent through, for example, our new strategy, we said, sent through an early draft to you and your guys as well. It, it’s, it’s the way we need to work. That’s the way the Engineering Council needs to work.
Mark McBride-Wright 34:20
Excellent and and the way I mobilize our organization to support is there is a variation in scale and resources available to those 40 PIs, you know, from large ones that have actual teams on dei to people who individual, an individual who might be doing on the in addition to their marketing job for the institution or something, you know, small number of members and so, you know, one of the projects I’m trying to convene at the moment is a sort of part. Partnership, essentially between each of the institutions that would like to join equal engineers to then help convene, like a monthly knowledge sharing forum. You know, there’s an idea that came up from the work that we did with the Engineering Council over a year ago when I helped your mark on team on that webinar. It’s been bubbling away in my mind, and I just think it’s, it’s good for us if people feel more supported in what they do. So yeah, we haven’t. We haven’t set anything up yet, but we’re in, we’re in discussion about five out of the 40 odd have have indicated an interest. So it’s something that I want to get up and running in 2026
Paul Bailey 35:45
I mean, that’s a really good point mark as well, in terms of the 40 institutions, in terms of the scale of operations, the size of the organization, frankly, you know, you have the likes of the itI Mickey, you know, hugely successful but Large organizations and others, who who the Engineering Council licensed to assess, confer registration, not so big, and they don’t have the facilities and the capacity. I know they, you’re absolutely right. They won’t have dedicated diversity teams to look at this. But I think the strength of the engineering profession, engineering community, again, is not withstanding the healthy tensions that can understand the exist between such organization, the need for collaboration, the wish for collaboration, the driver for collaboration, just override all of that. And you know, the fresh, changing community is quite a mature community, and that’s built up over a number of years. So, you know, I don’t think any of us ever take it for granted. That’s how it works. But the PEIS are just very, very good at working together on those sort of important aspects. There is almost that one team approach, if you like, sometimes of the PIs, it’s very impressive.
Mark McBride-Wright 36:53
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. So in terms of the work that you’re doing then at the Engineering Council, where, where do you see it going in the future, aside from the regulation role and updating to include new, new technologies, etc, from a from a sort of skills perspective, from helping the UK industrial strategy and different organizations that have got a role to play in that you know where, where or let’s not restrict the question just to the Engineering Council, like, what’s your What are your thoughts on the challenges, but also opportunities that we have in UK engineering today.
Paul Bailey 37:41
Of in terms of the challenges, I think the challenges for the profession at the moment, there’s this, I’ve spoken about trust. There’s this public trust piece, Mark, I think really, that’s really important, and particularly in light of the tragedies are like the Grenfell tower tragedy and the injustice of the horizon issue of the post office. So I think the challenge with the profession is just to maintain that trust. Demonstrate we can the profession receive that trust. I guess the opportunities we are the profession is still pushing on an open door with regards to how we’re how trustworthy we’re seeing as a profession in the eyes of the public. Now, I’m gonna definitely try and get this right, because this is, this is very impressive to work for depression, I think Ipsos veracity index, which this to what degree the public trusts certain roles? Yeah, I think engineers come after I’m going to say doctors or nurses, yeah, yeah, but we’re up there, yeah, yeah, but we’re up there. And I think, yeah, I think public trust. Maintain that public trust is super important, because the big engineering projects rely on public trust, yeah, building bridges, building they rely on that public trust. And the profession has that trust, and it values that trust. But you know, if there are, if there is another Grenfell, if there never is another issue, that we can’t completely take a pre mortem approach, clearly at times, but we need to demonstrate to the public that we’re doing as much as we can to safeguard them, to maintain that trust. So I think the challenge is attending that public trust. I think opportunity there is that we currently have that, and we can deploy that, and we can use that
Mark McBride-Wright 39:50
that you’re making me think, actually it’s a really good how we weave it in there, you know, in terms when we’re trying to. Mark engineering as a viable career and industry within which to go and pursue a career. You know, often it still doesn’t always come front to mind for parents, teachers, you know, people who influence young people and decisions that they make about what they could do when they’re older, what opportunities they can pursue. You know, still, there’s still a lot of work to be done, even though there’s a lot of great work that has been done through like this is engineering media campaign and the engineering UK, big bank, fair and the neon resources that are available for teachers and stuff, I still, I still feel when you when, when you go on a school, or when I’ve done like an equal engineers outreach and a random school or something, the teacher still doesn’t know how to sort of talk about what engineers do, or what pathways are available or or even The resources that are available for them, as a practitioner, as a teacher, to go out and make use of that’s usually freely available, you know, to download and integrate in the lesson plan. So I just still think there’s this big systems problem of how to really make this complicated network of organizations like come together. And, you know, I saw a LinkedIn Post recently from, I forget his name, Andrew. He’s a researcher at UCL, is a lecturer at UCL, and he flagged up the fact that in the most recent industrial strategy, or industrial ambition, I’ve yet to get clued up on all the current things that are underpinning where we’re going industry wise. But anyway, he did what I did. Whenever I see a new document, I’d open the PDF up and I do a control find for the keywords that are really important to me. And the word in the word engineering didn’t appear. Science appeared loads, but engineering didn’t appear. And these are documents that underscore policy decisions. And so if engineering as a verb, as an adjective as a isn’t appearing in this stuff, then it’s it shows how, how disconnected the system is, you know, yeah,
Paul Bailey 42:25
I think, I think, I think that’s right. And coming back to your example about, I mean, I don’t you. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to teachers, they got a fantastically tough job at times, particularly with young people at certain ages in terms of the options they have available to them. But teachers may not have an understanding of at times of where of engineering society. But actually the young people will, they will have an understanding, because actually they understand. They understand engineering’s impact on society. Yeah, they and they under, you know, they understand. They sometimes, you know, hesitant, you know, they can see. They can understand. As engineers, we’re almost like stewards of Sustainability, for example, so that so the young people understand that’s the law of engineering, so that there’s a disconnect there between their understanding, and perhaps teachers as well. So, and that’s why I think the profession is going to be is in safe hands, because we, this is a generation that generally cares for ethical behavior and sustainability generally, you know, I have to take teenage sons who who are not shy speaking the truth and and, you know, in terms of twisting their concerns about sustainability, and they do understand the role that engineers can play play in that, particularly in the context of addressing poverty, climate change. You know, engineer and engineers get spoken out now in those contexts, as opposed to, I’m not going to resort to huge cliches, but it’s just not all about getting under car and getting dirty and, you know, all the, all the rest of it, it’s such an amazingly broad profession, yeah. And I think, I think young people really believe that, and I think that’s helped as well by young people understand this. It’s about engineers not just addressing current problems, but anticipating future ones as well. Yeah, yeah, which is, which is a fantastic mindset to have. So, yeah, that that that disconnect. You talk about Mark. There’s probably a few examples, actually, but I’m of the firm belief that probably my mantra, it’s going to be fine. My gravestone, it’s going to be fine. But I generally believe that because, you know, I see this at first hand, and I see the reaction to young people. I see young people’s understanding of engineering. And I say this, this kind of engineers are stewards of sustainability, or stewards of societal issues. I kind of that kind of stuck with me a bit, actually,
Mark McBride-Wright 44:53
amazing, amazing. Oh, that, that that is very, very joyful and hopeful and uplifting, and we need. Yeah, we need to embody that. Actually. We really need to. There’s too much, like doom and gloom, like we need to, yeah, lead with that. Yeah. Okay. Quick Fire questions. You ready? I think so, right. What’s the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received?
Paul Bailey 45:19
Well, I was gonna say, be yourself, but I’ve already spoken about authenticity, so I love the advice about good leadership. Revise. Good leadership provides further leaders, not further followers. I always kind of like that the biggest kick I’ll ever get, and the biggest kick I still get now is people who have worked for me going on to hold senior positions at other organizations. Sounds very altruistic, but I get a genuine joy out of that.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:46
What one professional achievement you’re especially proud of, the
Paul Bailey 45:51
Wellbeing Framework that we’ve introduced at the Engineering Council. We won’t start. We won’t start quite starting at Ground Zero, but in the short space of time, we built this fabulous Wellbeing Framework for the staff, and it’s paying dividends in terms of output, enjoyment, quality of work. Really pleased with
Mark McBride-Wright 46:09
tea, coffee or something else.
Paul Bailey 46:16
What time is it? It’s nearly half past three. It’s a mint tea. What’s a
Mark McBride-Wright 46:21
book or resource you recommend early career engineers,
Paul Bailey 46:27
resource, the professional engineering institutions I’ve already spoken how wonderful they are. They are complete resource. They will further and develop your education. But for me, so join the Pei. Your education will soar. A book, I would probably for an engineer. I would probably pick anything that’s not to do with engineering. Controversially diverse minds breed, you know, diverse thoughts, what have you. There’s a very good book. I forget his name now. It’s Daniel Carman talking about thinking slow and fast. Very good about two types of brains. Brain, a fast brain, slow brain. And that actually introduces the idea of, you know, this inherent biases that we have in our in our first brain, brain, our fast brain. So that’s a very good
Mark McBride-Wright 47:14
book. What’s one quality every good regulator should have?
Paul Bailey 47:21
Um, spoken about being relevant and adaptable, I would say probably clarity, actually being clarity, clear on our role, because we spoke Mark about this, this, this busy space of engineering. At the end of the day, the regulators have very, very important jobs that safeguard to society. So notwithstanding the day to day work, we do that what we do to support others staying true to our core objective is very important, and provide that clarity at times. So no one misunderstands what the Engineering Council is there to do and what its job and responsibility do. So yeah, probably surprise. It clarity, probably
Mark McBride-Wright 48:01
okay. What’s something about engineering regulation that might surprise people?
Paul Bailey 48:08
Oh, that was self regulated. We’re not. We’re not. There’s not statutory regulation. Most of the professional know this, but anyone can call themselves an engineer as well, and that’s always an interesting, always an interesting, always interesting discussion we have. So engineers not a regulated profession. It’s a chartered profession. That’s always some people find that surprising as well. But yeah, the fact that engineer is not a protected title in itself.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:44
Well, it’s one value you always try to lead with.
Paul Bailey 48:52
Probably talking about the safe leader. I’m probably going to go over the F for feeling here, but actually compassion, actually empathy, understanding a design help others. I mentioned earlier on this kick by the get of seeing others to develop and move on to bigger and better things, I get a I get a real joy out of that. But yeah, compassion, particularly in a post covid world, particularly in the world we live in a hybrid environment, we’ve got people have no idea what’s going on behind the screens at home for a lot of folks. So compassion. Be nice, be kind,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:25
be nice and kind. What? Who’s an engineering thinker or leader that you admire?
Paul Bailey 49:29
I’m probably gonna share my physics roots here. We have a staff survey on this episode recently, so I’ve got this one absolutely bang on. So Jocelyn Bell Burnell, okay?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:43
And finally, all right, tell us about
Paul Bailey 49:46
amazing ladies. She discovered pulsars. Okay?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:51
And finally, what advice would you give to a young engineer registering for the first time today? Right?
Paul Bailey 50:00
Registration is the start of the journey. Make use of your PEI. You get as much much out of your Pei and your registration as you put in opportunities to contribute to profession. Yeah, use your
Mark McBride-Wright 50:15
PEI. Brilliant, brilliant,
Paul Bailey 50:17
sorry, Mark, they weren’t very quick far answers.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:20
You, you engineered new answers in there. That’s fine. If people want to get in touch with you find out more about the Engineering Council. How did they do that?
Paul Bailey 50:31
So either jump onto our new website, I’m proud to say we’ve got a new website, www.engc.org, UK, and if anyone wants to get in contact with me, my email address is P, Bailey, b, a, i, L, E, y@engc.org.uk,
Mark McBride-Wright 50:51
wonderful, wonderful. Thanks very much, Paul, it has been
Paul Bailey 50:55
a pleasure. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, absolutely great to chat. You.
E044: Trust and Compassion in Engineering
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:02
Welcome to the next episode of the start recording again. Oh, it’s recording right, that’s fine. Elio, can edit that, right? Hello. I’m your host. Mark McBride-Wright, welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. And I’m joined today by Paul Bailey. Hi.
Paul Bailey 0:28
Paul Bailey, I usually just stop that. Sorry. I normally just go straight into all i
Paul Bailey 0:46
It’s still recording, isn’t it, right? It looks like
Mark McBride-Wright 0:52
Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m delighted today to be joined by Paul Bailey, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Engineering Council, the UK’s regulatory body for the engineering profession, with a degree in physics from the University of Manchester and a background in aerospace and aviation, Paul is a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a member of the Institute of Physics before becoming CEO, Paul served as Deputy CEO and Operations Director at the Engineering Council for over eight years following his earlier role as Deputy CEO at the Royal Aeronautical Society. He now leads the organization staff team and represents the Engineering Council across numerous national and international partnerships, championing professional standards, registration and the role of engineering in society. Paul is committed to fostering public trust in engineering and empowering the profession to be safe, ethical and inclusive. Paul, welcome.
Paul Bailey 2:01
Thank you, Mark. Yeah, thanks devil so much, and thank you for the kind introduction. Great to be here.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:06
Wow, those three words, safe, ethical and inclusive. I mean, that’s that’s just got this podcast written all over it. So, yeah, great to have you. So let’s we always like starting off with finding out a bit about the person in front of us, finding about your motivations, your younger self. You know what inspired you? So it sounds like you’ve got an engineering background more or less yourself as well, sort of STEM technical background. So let’s go back in time and find out about the younger Paul, did you always know what you wanted to be when you were older? What were your inspirations when you were younger?
Paul Bailey 2:49
So well, inspiration and career choice, I guess, up to the age of 13, it was all about wanting to open the back for England. But that soon became apparent that wasn’t going to happen. So sorry, wanting to open a bank of England. Wanted to open the bat in cricket through England. That was that was the dream mark, that was the aspiration. And when it became clear that wasn’t going to quite work out, I was lucky enough to have a real passion for STEM, particularly science, particularly physics. Okay, so I’ve managed to get myself into this wonderful world of engineering. It’s been more more luck than judgment. Completely more luck than judgment. I had a great physics teacher at school, and I was lucky enough to study at that degree level. And physics has never been that far away from engineering. Really, I don’t there’s a maxim out there that scientists dream about doing great things, what engineers do them. I don’t quite subscribe to that, but it’s probably not a million miles from the truth. I was very much into theoretical physics. Really enjoyed that so and I still, you know, I still read physics books now as a leisurely pursuit. I still have that passion. So, yeah, so I went from physics, left school, went lucky enough to go to university and started work at an organization, is that the airport that dealt with rotables, which are serviceable, repairable components for aircraft. Oh, okay, okay, so that’s where I got to the aerospace and aviation world. And then I made probably the most important jump in my life. I applied for the job at Royal Aeronautical Society, which is the learning society for aviation. Aerospace you’ve come across, I’m sure you’ve probably done a lot of work with them, great organization. And that’s where engineering kind of came into view. The Royal aerostat is fantastic. The breadth of activities they do. There’s aviation or aviation medicine, there’s pilots, but clearly there’s a lot of aerospace engineering as well. And that’s where I started to learn a lot about aerospace engineering. And. And then I went to the Engineering Council. And this is where it gets embarrassing mark. I went to the Engineering Council as a senior executive for higher education. I then went back to the royal era as Deputy CEO. You can see where this is going. And then I went back to the Engineering Council as Deputy CEO, and I was fortunate enough to be given the job as CEO two and a half years ago. So yeah, I’ve stayed in this space for best part of 30 years, and absolutely love it.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:25
So when you were doing physics, then tell us a bit about your experience of doing physics at Manchester. You study that, right? Yeah. So we’re fresh out of hosting our engineering talent awards, equal engineers, engineering talent awards in Manchester last week. So tell us about being a student in Manchester. And also, you know, physics is a sort of gateway subject for engineers. And I was speaking to the Institute of Physics last week, they’ve got a new report out looking at like the reduction in number of physics teachers, and that I’m going to get these statistics wrong, something like only 70% of schools that do physics are given 30% of the student outreach, or the students into the funnel, or it’s the other way around. I can’t remember, but there’s, there’s, there’s something where there. It’s almost like a risk, a risk issue, you know, like STEM subjects being taught by non STEM teachers, non physics teachers, how I’m asking you a ton of questions here in Arno, what I’m interested to know, how you’ve seen the sort of, what was the diversity of your course like back then, given that as a gateway subject, and have you seen things change in general? Are you seeing things change in engineering?
Paul Bailey 6:47
Yeah, yeah. That’s a that’s that’s the really interesting question mark, and a really timely one, because as a group of us, our cohort, in my year, we managed to stumble upon the graduation video of all things for our right? Wow, and it was on YouTube. Yeah, it was pretty great, as you can imagine. But what was really interesting is it really hammered home. We knew this at the time they were about, I’m going to guess probably about 250 young people on our course. I think there were about 10 women, and that was borne out by revisiting the graduation again. Have things changed? I think, certainly going to right direction. I was pleased to hear, I think was last week, Tom grinlier, CEO Institute physics, declared that there were more young women studying physics a level physics than ever, and that numbers increases. So that’s, that’s, that’s a real good news item, but clearly more needs to be done. So what change have I seen? Probably not too much, but it sounds as though changes afoot. And I think it’s, it will have a responsibility to really kind of help, help that continuous, same trajectory, really so, but no certainly back in you can ask a question about what was, you know, studied in Manchester in the early 90s. I probably won’t go into too much detail on that, but it’s a great deal of fun. Great University, great city study. But yeah, in terms of, in terms of the diversity of my year, yeah, not great. Not great, as I
Mark McBride-Wright 8:20
recall early 90s Manchester. Isn’t that like when Oasis was sort of forming, and Nolan Liam Gallagher would have been walking around, and it was, it
Paul Bailey 8:31
was, it was a great time Mark. It was a great but it’s a fact. I mean, it’s fantastic. University had a fantastic physics department. I mean, not withstanding to Manchester. This is where rudford split the ass. And this is, you know, it has a great heritage, great history for physics. And I was lucky enough to end up going there.
Mark McBride-Wright 8:51
It was called the Manchester School of Technology. Was it back then?
Paul Bailey 8:59
The Yeah, there were, there was so Manchester University, perhaps, as we know it now, was called the Victoria University of Manchester, and there was umis, which was that said University Institute of Science and Technology. I hope I’ve got that right, but that was the two places,
Mark McBride-Wright 9:16
yeah, that that still existed when I started my degree, because we did Frank Martin’s. The thing that chemical engineers do every year is that undergraduates, like a sort of sports get together. Yeah, that was, it was still called, you missed back in 2006 which would have been the year that I did it. But then, yeah, it changed. So if we talk a bit about the role of so you’ve, you’ve you’ve had a pseudo squiggly career, sort of, or a ping pong career, ping pong career pinball, you know, moving moving up there to where you’re at. Now, were there any mentors or advisors, coaches, people that helped you? You along the way. What role has seeking out help played in your ping pongy route to now?
Paul Bailey 10:10
Yeah, two. I mean, two mentors really spring to mind, actually. And of course, because I’ve only been the royal errors in the Engineering Council. It’s not too difficult sometimes to pin down perhaps who I’m even talking about. But one of one of my bosses early in my career taught me a lot about authenticity. Okay, and this individual was very much authentic, very much is a man and stayed true to his core values. And perhaps what I saw in the way he was authentic is that he made life easy for himself. If that makes sense, he didn’t have to put on any mask or any new face. He was always been authentic, because he had these core values and core beliefs, and he stayed and he stayed true to them. And so it made his it made his work in life, and he became a good friend office, but it made his work in life and his decision making seemingly very straightforward, yeah, because he didn’t have to grapple with almost like any sort of inner demons or in a turmoil, because he had his beliefs, had his values, and therefore, I’m sure it wasn’t as plain salient as it seemed to be, yeah, but he seemed to make decision making very easy. And that authenticity being that authentic, that just kind of developed the whole deal of trust in Him, and these actions and activities that kind of pervaded the whole organization, you know, he was, he was very good at that, and we felt that we could trust him. We felt that we could admit our mistakes and work with him. So, yeah, that authentic piece, being yourself. I learned that very on my career, and to be honest, Mark I, you know, I still carry that through, and I still have that individual on my shoulder a lot of the time. Am I being really true to my core beliefs and values here? Am I being authentic, or am I really peddling hard to almost be someone I’m not? If that makes sense,
Mark McBride-Wright 12:20
yeah, no, totally, totally. It helps remove a whole bunch of fillers that you may have to have on if you’re inauthentic or not showing up. We can have different versions of ourselves, obviously, for different situations, but that’s just having a range of emotion, I guess, isn’t it? And that being as close to who you are innately and would naturally react or be in a situation whilst being professional as well, is is, yeah, it’s a good it’s a good personal benefit, I guess, of adopting an inclusive leadership approach and being accessible to teams and your colleagues.
Paul Bailey 13:10
I like that, but yeah, being, yeah, absolutely that accessible pieces that that that was very important, and that remains a key pillar, if you like, of my leadership and managing people and dealing with people. You know it’s the old adage. And I think staff at the Engineering Council probably get bored of this, but it’s that old adage of, what can I do to help all the time, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of my job. What can I do to help? And I think I was, I picked up another point. I actually a CEO from one of the engineer institutions, taught me recently as well about, you know, one of the roles of being a CEO and a leader is to help clear the rubble out the way, which I really liked as well. Really like that, you know, that is, that is the role. You know, when CEOs, we’re not all sat here in company armchairs waiting to be called upon to clear the rubble clearly, but that, that whole mindset in there and always, what can I do to help what can I do to help you make your job happy, to be more effective in your job with us, day to day, week to week. So, yeah, I learned a great place, a great deal of stock, in those two kind of approaches.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:14
The analogy I heard on that was I like the CEO I spoke to, was I like removing roadblocks. So, so maybe it depends on the type of engineering institution you’re in in terms of what the the object
Paul Bailey 14:27
is. That’s true, yeah, yeah. I haven’t given too much away by referring to rubble. I don’t think I ever think I’m all right.
Mark McBride-Wright 14:35
No, no. So tell us where I mean the Engineering Council people. I sometimes I’m too quick to make the assumption that people know the intricacies of the UK engineering landscape between the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering UK and the Engineering Council and professional engineering institutions and. I find myself sometimes when I’m just monologuing or saying lots of points and this big tapestry of interconnection and influence. Actually, some people just Whoa. You need to go back to basics. I’ve never heard those organizations. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m new to all of this. So can you just unpack for us a bit the landscape what the Engineering Council does, and therefore, yeah, your
Paul Bailey 15:25
role within that, yeah, it’s, I mean, you’re absolutely right, and we’ve known each other a long time, Mark, and I know you’re on standard landscape, you’re absolutely right. It is complex, and that that can create issues, of course, in trying to draw people in, into the professional community, perhaps because there are so many organizations involved. So I’m going to do my best to kind of boil it down. So I’m going to try and use, I’m going to try and not upset anyone here, but I’m going to try and use one or two word terms to describe what these organizations do. So for the Engineering Council. I mean, we’re the regulatory body. We’re the regulator for the engineering profession. And if you were to distill down what we do on a day to day, week to week basis, we set standards. We maintain a register of registered engineers and technicians, and thirdly, we license institutions, professional engineering institutions, PEIS to carry out our work. There are less than 40 staff at the Engineering Council, and we have a, you know, we have a tremendously important role in in terms of registering, assessing individuals, registration, accrediting degree programs, approving training courses. We can’t do that all by ourselves. We don’t have the time, space, the bandwidth, and, frankly, nowhere near the capability, given the breadth of the profession. So we license engineering institutions to do that on our behalf. There are 40 engineering institutions in the UK now, I’d imagine mark, even with your understanding of the engineering community, that might even come a surprise to you, because that number just seems to go up every every this seems to increase every year, but it’s now 40. Okay, one of the challenges for the Engineering Council is just ensuring that there’s some consistency of approach among the 40 institutions, yeah, in terms of how they assess individuals, in terms of how they credit degree. So there’s a, there’s a quality assurance space there, yeah, which is an interesting challenge in itself. Sidebar comment, it’s fantastic working with those 40 Indian institutions. I mean, again, that’s the reason why stick around in this space. They’re just, they’re just fantastic organizations to what they truly are. So there, then you’ve got that the PIs, the pressure and engineering institutions, which represent hundreds of 1000s of engineers and technicians, not all registered, but in a huge amount of people working in the profession. So Engineering Council, engineering institutions, quick sidebar, no, I’m not doing this in order of priority, just in case anyone case anyone gets upset out there. And then you have our wonderful colleagues at engineering UK, who we worked with for a number of years. Been a quick history lesson. We used to be one organization, then we bifurcated into the Engineering Council and into the UK. Engineering UK, look promote engineering as a creative young people, right? And they do a fantastic job with that. And they have tremendous breadth. They do it so much in the same space. They really do fantastic organization. You then have the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is the kind of the policy center, if you like, I’m doing a huge disservice there, because, again, it’s fantastic institution with some fantastic fellows Academy there, but they’re almost the lightning rod, if You like, mark for government, yeah, and the institutions all are all, all of our institutions, including the Engineering Council, we, to some degree on the policy side, we remain in orbit around the Royal Academy of Engineering, okay, because of the policy work they do and the policy work they do now is deployed by the National Engineering Policy Center, the nepc, yeah. So there we go. I mean, on the back of three minutes, there’s probably a myriad number of institutions there already, and there are many others doing some fantastic work as well, particularly on the stem side, yeah. And the challenge for all of us is just cohering all this great work together. It does work. We manage to, I truly believe we managed to maintain this healthy tension at times between the organizations. We got some clear delineation in terms of the extent of our duties and responsibilities. It it works the Professional Engineer Engineer community works, and it works because we talk a lot. Well, yeah, we work a lot together. Have
Mark McBride-Wright 20:03
to be connected. It all comes down to people connections as well, doesn’t it? And relationship building can tell us a bit about the work you’ve been doing for the international community, with with engineers working overseas. You’ve you’ve been doing some partnership. Partnership development is one of your one it was one of the things in your biography there, and so I was just interested in what you’ve been doing with international partnerships. Yeah. I mean,
Paul Bailey 20:32
we have a written duty in our in our duties and our Royal Charter duties with regards to our international activities, in particularly in terms of promoting and facilitating international mobility. 20% which is a pretty silly number, 20% of our of our registrants on our register reside overseas, not necessarily overseas nationals, but they reside overseas. And that number has been pretty steady state for the last few years. So one in five on our register reside overseas. The great headline activity for us over the last 18 months is confirming a mutual recognition agreement with the US. Yeah, yes, that’s what I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah, which has been several years in the making. It’s an MRA, a mutual recognition agreement that’s been cited in the new government’s trade strategy, which we’re over the moon about. Oh, great. Clearly, government are looking towards Mrs. A way of facilitating agreements and mobility. But this has been a it’s been a fantastic exercise. Mark, it’s I perhaps unfairly, have presented the challenge of this particular MRA as the Federated States of the US meeting the federated PEIS. Right? Again, 40 PE is 50 states American. But it’s worked tremendously. So now we’ve already, institutions have already started to register engineers, professional engineers, capital P, capital E, from the US. And we have our chartered engineers going the other way, and we’ve done that under the auspices of department, business and trade, DBT. So that’s been a fantastic experience as well. But that’s that’s been a real headlight. I think for the last 12 months, I’ve been going around and talking to all and sundry, and one of the first things I always talk about is, have you heard of this? Ma, MRA, we managed to get across the line so we’re, yeah, we’re tremendously proud of it.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:32
That’s great. And how, how do you think you’ll have all of the states signed up at some point?
Paul Bailey 22:41
That’s, I knew you were going to ask that question. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s the A we got 29 right? We’re up to 29 there. Whereas, you know, a lot of the lots of respect have that clearly have their own systems, and they have their own levels of governance to get this sort of thing through, yeah, and that presents a challenge for them in terms of timings, but that’s the aspiration. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I’m thrilled to see on the likes of LinkedIn, on a regular basis, newly registered engineers both sides declaring how happy they are with it all. So it’s been a real success for us. But yeah, there’s more to do. There is more to do.
Mark McBride-Wright 23:25
Will that mean it’s easier for employers to what in a practical way? What does that mean for the individuals and for organizations that are wanting to employ them?
Paul Bailey 23:38
It’s just, it’s just a really readable means of validating that person’s competence and commitment. And if, for example, an American engineer, a US engineer, rather, wants to come over and work in the UK for any UK firms and organizations that want that validation of competence and commitment, ie, they want a chartered engineer, yeah, being able to come across and present their credentials as a professional engineer, yeah, and get that, get that registration, will be more straightforward procedurally.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:09
Yeah, no, definitely. I remember, well, I mean, I’ve just come back from living in New York State for for a year, and yeah, that, that, having that PNG, as it’s called over in the US, after your name, at the time, for me, it would have required, like, doing more exams, or like retraining, and it’s just, it just completely put you off so you end up, you know, not being an engineer, in terms of, like, your Your your employment, or that there’s a real barrier, a real barrier to
Paul Bailey 24:44
to, well, that’s what it is. Mark, yeah, it’s facilitating mobility. We’re moving barriers. And that is, that is a role. I mean, I talk about the Engineering Council settings, setting standards, run and register, licensing institutions. But you know, a lot of our international work is right. Tapping that that’s all about facilitating mobility. There are other agreements with other jurisdictions around the world. That’s always an interesting challenge as well. We’ve, you know, we’ve been looking to work with India, Australia as well. So they’re all in development. So we’re very excited about that. But at the end of the day, it’s about providing mobility for engineers and technicians.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:20
Yeah, that is that. That is exciting. That is exciting. So where do you see professional registration evolving?
Paul Bailey 25:34
It’s it’s going to have to it’s going to have to involve, it needs to evolve, particularly in light of the fact we need, we need to do more in terms of encouraging people to become registered. So clearly, that’s that’s the kind of challenge number one, really. At the moment, we have over 220,000 engineers and technicians on our register, against a engineering population of X million, right, right? So our market penetration is not there. So it needs to evolve. It needs to stay relevant and adapt. We need, we the engineer Council. We need to continue to provide standards, develop our standards that are contemporary, staying in pace with with the profession. Yeah, we, I say we routinely review our standard. We do so we look to review our standard every five years. But a lot can happen in five years. Yeah, clearly. So I think one of the challenges of registration is having a standard that is contemporary, having a process of registration that is agile, that is again all about removing barriers. Doesn’t present any barriers to anyone when to become registered. And there is a diversity aspect there, yeah, give an example there. One of the pieces of work we’ve done the last two years, which we’re tremendously proud of, is the work the guidance we’ve done on neurodiversity, okay, providing guidance for new neurodiverse applicants. Fantastic piece of work. And again, the guidance we’re very proud of, but again, just making sure there are no barriers there, keeping pace with the profession, keeping pace with society and society’s expectations, whilst at same time, being very mindful that, you know, we need to have standards that protect the public and safeguard society. Yeah, so I guess the short answer probably the real short, pithy answer mark in terms of professional registration. It’s about relevance, yeah, keeping keeping pace. And that involves listening. That involves drawing people into the Engineering Council in a relatively well. We can’t we as an organization, can’t be we used to be known, I think it’s just before my time. We used to be known as the kind of policeman from Holborn, because we used to have offices in Holborn. I don’t like the idea of people not almost getting a glimpse behind the cloak of regulation and Engineering Council. We we’re never going to get buy in from registrants, non registrants, employers, industry, if we can’t open ourselves up as a regulator. Yeah. And the example that is when we develop our standards, which we predominantly do for the engineering institutions, but we should do through others as well. You know, this is where we think the standard is going to be going. Have you got this right? Can you help us in terms of what the horizon might look like in 510, years time?
Mark McBride-Wright 28:35
It’s, it’s, I’ve started illustrating more of my points that I make in my in my training by actually taking screenshot of the standards where the words diversity, inclusion, etc appear, because there it is, you know, it’s, it’s, and actually what was, well, it wasn’t surprising. It was, it was illuminating, I guess, was that some, some, some recent workshop participants didn’t actually realize that it was there. And so that what I love about the fact that in the most recent update round, that that’s what’s manifested, is that I can show a clear line of connection between this isn’t just let’s do it because it’s nice, it’s actually in the standard. It’s in the competency and commitment requirements. So therefore, by supporting and showing and enabling time for your employees or graduates or apprentices to attend X, Y and Z and take part in mentoring, it helps them achieve their their their piece. The one thing I think, and I believe I’ve heard that this is going to be happening more in the future, is then, once you become chartered, that continuing professional development, the enforcement is a strong word, I know, but that coming. Out, and maybe this is where the policing kind of context came from before. But there is still a feeling sometimes that, okay, tech got my chartership, right? Well, I’m never going to see them again. Off I go, you know, I’ll just pay my fees each year, and that’s it. But, you know, I love the stick, I guess that I’ve got with some some of my participants. I’m like, Look, you might be getting a random spot check, an audit to check your CPD log and validate if you’re keeping up to speed with how this has changed since you did your assessment X number of years ago, you know. And that’s why we’ve invested at equal engineers like my safe leader training. We’ve actually had that certified for CPD hours, so that the participants can get a certificate that says, I have done 12 hours of training, of CPD certified training in that if they ever were to be audited by any of the 40 PEIS, they could then have some evidence against that, you know, requirement in terms of dedication to dei and how culture is changing, and what it means for safety and workplace risk and hazard management. Yeah,
Paul Bailey 31:17
I think that’s a really good example mark what we’ve tried to do over the recent years. I mean, we have UK spec that our standard, the UK standard Professional Engineering competence. And there’s 1c in that acronym. That’s the C for competence and our job. No doubt, I’m sure we’ll talk about integrity of the regimen. Integrity means that to me and to the Engineering Council, but ensuring everyone on that register is competent is absolutely, is absolutely our primary concern. But actually, there’s two C’s. There’s competence and commitment. There’s 2c actually in iteration. I think I’ve seen references now to UK spec, where the acronym is UK SPCC point across of commitment, because that brings in the CPD element, because it’s talking to your point. It’s not a static qualification. That’s not static title, it’s not static credential. By becoming registered, you should have demonstrated your commitment to maintain your professional development, your commitment to the profession. Yeah, really. And that’s, that’s, that’s so important, because the world’s moving a fairly quick old lick, as we know. But actually it means that you are, you understand that it’s a it’s a vital component of being registered, of being an engineer, that you need to be aware of the work, where of the world around you have changing, and the profession in particular, I mean, it’s you know when that so you know when we revising this, when we began to revise the standards seven, eight years ago. Ai, for example, I’m picking a very obvious example, but you know, AI machine learning wasn’t, probably wasn’t the consideration. And here we are now talking about AI machine learning digital technologies in the context of the not only the standard, but our processes for regulation, our process is registration. So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s really hit off at a fell asleep, all of this.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:27
So when is the next update then, when is the next update schedule? Yes, I’ll
Paul Bailey 33:31
probably be accused now of leaving you that question. We’re in that we’re in the starting when the blocks of it now it’s going the nuclear standards, going to be released next year. Oh, right, okay, okay. And again, that’s a good example of the sort of what you do at the Engineering Council, where we rely on the engineering institutions and others. I should say, you know, I still think of the Engineering Council. We say this a lot to news artists for the Engineering Council, read the Council of engineer institutions. That’s how we see ourselves, that’s how we govern ourselves. That’s how we work together. So, for example, updating our standards. We work with the engine institutions, the Royal Academy, equal engineers as well. I know we sent through, for example, our new strategy, we said, sent through an early draft to you and your guys as well. It, it’s, it’s the way we need to work. That’s the way the Engineering Council needs to work.
Mark McBride-Wright 34:20
Excellent and and the way I mobilize our organization to support is there is a variation in scale and resources available to those 40 PIs, you know, from large ones that have actual teams on dei to people who individual, an individual who might be doing on the in addition to their marketing job for the institution or something, you know, small number of members and so, you know, one of the projects I’m trying to convene at the moment is a sort of part. Partnership, essentially between each of the institutions that would like to join equal engineers to then help convene, like a monthly knowledge sharing forum. You know, there’s an idea that came up from the work that we did with the Engineering Council over a year ago when I helped your mark on team on that webinar. It’s been bubbling away in my mind, and I just think it’s, it’s good for us if people feel more supported in what they do. So yeah, we haven’t. We haven’t set anything up yet, but we’re in, we’re in discussion about five out of the 40 odd have have indicated an interest. So it’s something that I want to get up and running in 2026
Paul Bailey 35:45
I mean, that’s a really good point mark as well, in terms of the 40 institutions, in terms of the scale of operations, the size of the organization, frankly, you know, you have the likes of the itI Mickey, you know, hugely successful but Large organizations and others, who who the Engineering Council licensed to assess, confer registration, not so big, and they don’t have the facilities and the capacity. I know they, you’re absolutely right. They won’t have dedicated diversity teams to look at this. But I think the strength of the engineering profession, engineering community, again, is not withstanding the healthy tensions that can understand the exist between such organization, the need for collaboration, the wish for collaboration, the driver for collaboration, just override all of that. And you know, the fresh, changing community is quite a mature community, and that’s built up over a number of years. So, you know, I don’t think any of us ever take it for granted. That’s how it works. But the PEIS are just very, very good at working together on those sort of important aspects. There is almost that one team approach, if you like, sometimes of the PIs, it’s very impressive.
Mark McBride-Wright 36:53
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. So in terms of the work that you’re doing then at the Engineering Council, where, where do you see it going in the future, aside from the regulation role and updating to include new, new technologies, etc, from a from a sort of skills perspective, from helping the UK industrial strategy and different organizations that have got a role to play in that you know where, where or let’s not restrict the question just to the Engineering Council, like, what’s your What are your thoughts on the challenges, but also opportunities that we have in UK engineering today.
Paul Bailey 37:41
Of in terms of the challenges, I think the challenges for the profession at the moment, there’s this, I’ve spoken about trust. There’s this public trust piece, Mark, I think really, that’s really important, and particularly in light of the tragedies are like the Grenfell tower tragedy and the injustice of the horizon issue of the post office. So I think the challenge with the profession is just to maintain that trust. Demonstrate we can the profession receive that trust. I guess the opportunities we are the profession is still pushing on an open door with regards to how we’re how trustworthy we’re seeing as a profession in the eyes of the public. Now, I’m gonna definitely try and get this right, because this is, this is very impressive to work for depression, I think Ipsos veracity index, which this to what degree the public trusts certain roles? Yeah, I think engineers come after I’m going to say doctors or nurses, yeah, yeah, but we’re up there, yeah, yeah, but we’re up there. And I think, yeah, I think public trust. Maintain that public trust is super important, because the big engineering projects rely on public trust, yeah, building bridges, building they rely on that public trust. And the profession has that trust, and it values that trust. But you know, if there are, if there is another Grenfell, if there never is another issue, that we can’t completely take a pre mortem approach, clearly at times, but we need to demonstrate to the public that we’re doing as much as we can to safeguard them, to maintain that trust. So I think the challenge is attending that public trust. I think opportunity there is that we currently have that, and we can deploy that, and we can use that
Mark McBride-Wright 39:50
that you’re making me think, actually it’s a really good how we weave it in there, you know, in terms when we’re trying to. Mark engineering as a viable career and industry within which to go and pursue a career. You know, often it still doesn’t always come front to mind for parents, teachers, you know, people who influence young people and decisions that they make about what they could do when they’re older, what opportunities they can pursue. You know, still, there’s still a lot of work to be done, even though there’s a lot of great work that has been done through like this is engineering media campaign and the engineering UK, big bank, fair and the neon resources that are available for teachers and stuff, I still, I still feel when you when, when you go on a school, or when I’ve done like an equal engineers outreach and a random school or something, the teacher still doesn’t know how to sort of talk about what engineers do, or what pathways are available or or even The resources that are available for them, as a practitioner, as a teacher, to go out and make use of that’s usually freely available, you know, to download and integrate in the lesson plan. So I just still think there’s this big systems problem of how to really make this complicated network of organizations like come together. And, you know, I saw a LinkedIn Post recently from, I forget his name, Andrew. He’s a researcher at UCL, is a lecturer at UCL, and he flagged up the fact that in the most recent industrial strategy, or industrial ambition, I’ve yet to get clued up on all the current things that are underpinning where we’re going industry wise. But anyway, he did what I did. Whenever I see a new document, I’d open the PDF up and I do a control find for the keywords that are really important to me. And the word in the word engineering didn’t appear. Science appeared loads, but engineering didn’t appear. And these are documents that underscore policy decisions. And so if engineering as a verb, as an adjective as a isn’t appearing in this stuff, then it’s it shows how, how disconnected the system is, you know, yeah,
Paul Bailey 42:25
I think, I think, I think that’s right. And coming back to your example about, I mean, I don’t you. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to teachers, they got a fantastically tough job at times, particularly with young people at certain ages in terms of the options they have available to them. But teachers may not have an understanding of at times of where of engineering society. But actually the young people will, they will have an understanding, because actually they understand. They understand engineering’s impact on society. Yeah, they and they under, you know, they understand. They sometimes, you know, hesitant, you know, they can see. They can understand. As engineers, we’re almost like stewards of Sustainability, for example, so that so the young people understand that’s the law of engineering, so that there’s a disconnect there between their understanding, and perhaps teachers as well. So, and that’s why I think the profession is going to be is in safe hands, because we, this is a generation that generally cares for ethical behavior and sustainability generally, you know, I have to take teenage sons who who are not shy speaking the truth and and, you know, in terms of twisting their concerns about sustainability, and they do understand the role that engineers can play play in that, particularly in the context of addressing poverty, climate change. You know, engineer and engineers get spoken out now in those contexts, as opposed to, I’m not going to resort to huge cliches, but it’s just not all about getting under car and getting dirty and, you know, all the, all the rest of it, it’s such an amazingly broad profession, yeah. And I think, I think young people really believe that, and I think that’s helped as well by young people understand this. It’s about engineers not just addressing current problems, but anticipating future ones as well. Yeah, yeah, which is, which is a fantastic mindset to have. So, yeah, that that that disconnect. You talk about Mark. There’s probably a few examples, actually, but I’m of the firm belief that probably my mantra, it’s going to be fine. My gravestone, it’s going to be fine. But I generally believe that because, you know, I see this at first hand, and I see the reaction to young people. I see young people’s understanding of engineering. And I say this, this kind of engineers are stewards of sustainability, or stewards of societal issues. I kind of that kind of stuck with me a bit, actually,
Mark McBride-Wright 44:53
amazing, amazing. Oh, that, that that is very, very joyful and hopeful and uplifting, and we need. Yeah, we need to embody that. Actually. We really need to. There’s too much, like doom and gloom, like we need to, yeah, lead with that. Yeah. Okay. Quick Fire questions. You ready? I think so, right. What’s the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received?
Paul Bailey 45:19
Well, I was gonna say, be yourself, but I’ve already spoken about authenticity, so I love the advice about good leadership. Revise. Good leadership provides further leaders, not further followers. I always kind of like that the biggest kick I’ll ever get, and the biggest kick I still get now is people who have worked for me going on to hold senior positions at other organizations. Sounds very altruistic, but I get a genuine joy out of that.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:46
What one professional achievement you’re especially proud of, the
Paul Bailey 45:51
Wellbeing Framework that we’ve introduced at the Engineering Council. We won’t start. We won’t start quite starting at Ground Zero, but in the short space of time, we built this fabulous Wellbeing Framework for the staff, and it’s paying dividends in terms of output, enjoyment, quality of work. Really pleased with
Mark McBride-Wright 46:09
tea, coffee or something else.
Paul Bailey 46:16
What time is it? It’s nearly half past three. It’s a mint tea. What’s a
Mark McBride-Wright 46:21
book or resource you recommend early career engineers,
Paul Bailey 46:27
resource, the professional engineering institutions I’ve already spoken how wonderful they are. They are complete resource. They will further and develop your education. But for me, so join the Pei. Your education will soar. A book, I would probably for an engineer. I would probably pick anything that’s not to do with engineering. Controversially diverse minds breed, you know, diverse thoughts, what have you. There’s a very good book. I forget his name now. It’s Daniel Carman talking about thinking slow and fast. Very good about two types of brains. Brain, a fast brain, slow brain. And that actually introduces the idea of, you know, this inherent biases that we have in our in our first brain, brain, our fast brain. So that’s a very good
Mark McBride-Wright 47:14
book. What’s one quality every good regulator should have?
Paul Bailey 47:21
Um, spoken about being relevant and adaptable, I would say probably clarity, actually being clarity, clear on our role, because we spoke Mark about this, this, this busy space of engineering. At the end of the day, the regulators have very, very important jobs that safeguard to society. So notwithstanding the day to day work, we do that what we do to support others staying true to our core objective is very important, and provide that clarity at times. So no one misunderstands what the Engineering Council is there to do and what its job and responsibility do. So yeah, probably surprise. It clarity, probably
Mark McBride-Wright 48:01
okay. What’s something about engineering regulation that might surprise people?
Paul Bailey 48:08
Oh, that was self regulated. We’re not. We’re not. There’s not statutory regulation. Most of the professional know this, but anyone can call themselves an engineer as well, and that’s always an interesting, always an interesting, always interesting discussion we have. So engineers not a regulated profession. It’s a chartered profession. That’s always some people find that surprising as well. But yeah, the fact that engineer is not a protected title in itself.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:44
Well, it’s one value you always try to lead with.
Paul Bailey 48:52
Probably talking about the safe leader. I’m probably going to go over the F for feeling here, but actually compassion, actually empathy, understanding a design help others. I mentioned earlier on this kick by the get of seeing others to develop and move on to bigger and better things, I get a I get a real joy out of that. But yeah, compassion, particularly in a post covid world, particularly in the world we live in a hybrid environment, we’ve got people have no idea what’s going on behind the screens at home for a lot of folks. So compassion. Be nice, be kind,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:25
be nice and kind. What? Who’s an engineering thinker or leader that you admire?
Paul Bailey 49:29
I’m probably gonna share my physics roots here. We have a staff survey on this episode recently, so I’ve got this one absolutely bang on. So Jocelyn Bell Burnell, okay?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:43
And finally, all right, tell us about
Paul Bailey 49:46
amazing ladies. She discovered pulsars. Okay?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:51
And finally, what advice would you give to a young engineer registering for the first time today? Right?
Paul Bailey 50:00
Registration is the start of the journey. Make use of your PEI. You get as much much out of your Pei and your registration as you put in opportunities to contribute to profession. Yeah, use your
Mark McBride-Wright 50:15
PEI. Brilliant, brilliant,
Paul Bailey 50:17
sorry, Mark, they weren’t very quick far answers.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:20
You, you engineered new answers in there. That’s fine. If people want to get in touch with you find out more about the Engineering Council. How did they do that?
Paul Bailey 50:31
So either jump onto our new website, I’m proud to say we’ve got a new website, www.engc.org, UK, and if anyone wants to get in contact with me, my email address is P, Bailey, b, a, i, L, E, y@engc.org.uk,
Mark McBride-Wright 50:51
wonderful, wonderful. Thanks very much, Paul, it has been
Paul Bailey 50:55
a pleasure. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, absolutely great to chat. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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