I'm a Mech Eng graduate and it's too late for my generation. Once we were all eager beavers, we couldn't wait to get out into the real world and engineer some stuff. Most of us went into IT or banking because there were so few jobs for engineering graduates in our field. Now, hell, I've all the database skills you could want, but I barely know one end of a gas turbine from the other. Getting the UK back to an engineering powerhouse will not be quick or easy to do.