7 reasons to study Engineering Management

Becoming an Engineering Leader is the logical next step for a technical engineer in any field, from chemical engineering to aerospace engineering. It expands your horizons, allowing you to be more creative. The challenges of a new role allow you to develop and strengthen your skill set including technical and soft skills, supporting your continuous professional development. Career progression also re-energises you for any projects you are working on. Working on the same project for lengthy time periods can become repetitive.

The progression into management allows you to expand your creative mindset whilst reconnecting with your passion for the engineering industry.

Technological advancements such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies are transforming the way equipment operates. Employers in the engineering sector are looking for effective leaders who can make a business impact by responding to disruption and managing change.

Therefore, Engineering Managers must respond to these disruptive changes, such as floating railway lines, smart rings, or autonomous suitcases, and influence consequent initiatives in the engineering sector. Further, customers are demanding more customised equipment and intelligent interfaces, increasing this demand on the engineering sector to deliver value through technology to the end customer. Whatever the innovation is, being an Engineering Manager gives you a new frontier, allowing you to influence decisions and change the way we know the planet today.

Engineering Leaders have the advantage of staying close to technology as well as leading the way for other engineers. Due to the constant innovation and emerging technologies around the globe today, Engineering Leaders are required to keep close to technology to find solutions to business challenges, eradicating the myth that you will rarely be exposed to the technical side of engineering again as a leader.

It is important to accumulate an array of nontechnical experiences and skills to show senior management individuals your capability to manage others. Additionally, having a high level of technical knowledge aids one-to-one meetings with team members.

As a manager, your vision is reflected by the work of your team. Therefore, the number of things you will be involved in will increase, as well as the support you need from other divisions. Consequently, you are the link between senior management and your employees.

Being an Engineering Leader allows you to multiply your impact and initiate change in a fast-moving industry on the verge of the next most innovative product or process. You can shape the way your employees work and align this to the corporate goals of the organisation. This, in turn, increases your impact as a manager by filtering it down through your team.

As well as multiplying your impact, you can share your technical and industry-related knowledge with team members in mid-level or lower-level roles, as well as mentoring them to resolve technical challenges.

Exercising an open-door policy (Forbes) can help to encourage employees to share and listen to shared information. Recognising good ideas and building upon ideas that need development to credit success where needed is a great way to collaborate across hierarchical levels and share your knowledge.

As a leader in any industry, a secondary quality to leading is helping team members to succeed further in their careers. Imparting your wisdom into others to foster personal and professional development is a key managerial quality that can be very rewarding. This helps sustain positive feedback from employees who feel invested. Creating this engaged culture makes your role as a manager much easier.

When you observe the success of team members, you can see how your own guidance has supported this success, bringing a sense of personal reward to you as a leader.

Engineering Managers have the sought-after skills of being technically capable, such as understanding digitisation, and managerial simultaneously, making them multiskilled. This allows the acceleration of new technologies and innovation within the business.

Engineering Leaders are effectively bilingual: you can speak the technical language of the engineers in your team working on the production floor and translate this into the managerial dialect for senior-level employees. Therefore, as an Engineering Leader, you bridge the communication gap between the two, making you a multiskilled asset to the organisation and generating a collaborative, effective working environment.

If you want to become a multiskilled professional at the forefront of engineering changes across the planet who can share knowledge to maximise impact and help others to succeed in the process, you should consider becoming an Engineering Manager.

The Engineering Management MSc at the University of Leeds is delivered 100% online, giving you the flexibility to learn whilst working. The course is specifically designed for Engineers and will enable you to apply the advanced management techniques and practical skills that tomorrow’s business leaders will need. It’s ideal if you are:

• In the early stages of your career and looking to fast-track your progression.
• An ambitious professional with substantial industry experience.
• Already working in engineering management or are new to a management role and looking to develop your skills.
• A busy professional and/or working abroad and unable to study full-time on-campus.

There has never been a more important time for businesses to have technically proficient managers, and our specialised curriculum brings a modern, technology-focused perspective to tried and tested management strategies.

• Myths vs Truths of Engineering Management
• What roles are available for engineers progressing into management?
• Why study Engineering Management online?
• Engineering Management FAQs