Report on marine engineering industry in the uk - Coursework Example

Marine Engineering Industry in United Kingdom (UK) Globally, the shipping industry is recording rapid growth to adequately meet the increasing globaldemand, for instance, in the past four decades, global population and marine trade have recorded two-fold and four-fold growth rate respectively. With ships carrying approximately 77% of global trade, future projections indicate that seaborne trade will double over the next decade (Stem Choices 2010). This is good news to the United Kingdom marine (engineering) industry since 90% of visible trade in the region moves by sea.

With a turnover of more than £56 million and total employees exceeding 410,000, it is the leading marine sector across Europe; it outshines aerospace, automotive and agricultural sectors (Stem Choices 2010). This report explores the marine engineering sector of United Kingdom covering industry trends, development opportunities, development constraints and main players.Marine sector encompasses numerous activities ranging from sub-se technology to shipping, aquaculture to ports, commercial fishing to royal navy; and leisure to maritime financial and legal services (Smith, H.

& Lalwani 1999: 398). These activities can be divided into four subsectors relative to marine engineering activities namely marine resource-based, marine-related equipment and service, marine operations and shipping and marine system design and construction. Marine resource-based sub-sector involves activities for recovery of marine resources such as seabed mining and oil and gas exploration (Taylor 2013). Marine-related equipment and service sub-sector involves manufacture of equipment and provision of supportive services for marine activities; they include machinery, marine electronics, software development and instrumentation (Tooley 2012: 2-7).

Marine operations and shipping sub-sector involves activities such as waste disposal and dredging whereas marine system design and construction involve coastal and offshore engineering and design, construction and design of ships (Tooley 2012: 2-7).Several companies are active in this sector. However, only a few are presented in this report along with their corresponding contact details (UK Directory 2014):1. Woodward A & E Ltd North Bridge Works, Lime Street, Hull, HU8 7AB. Telephone 014823291852.

Tate & Crew Marine, The Boat Shed, the Crumbles, Eastbourne, BN23 6JH. Telephone 013234790003. Kestlin Diesel services Ltd, Bar Lane, Waddington, Lincoln, LN5 9SA. Telephone 015227229004. PB Mechanical Services, the Boatyard, Rawlinson Lane, Chorley, PR7 4DE. Telephone 01257474422Industry trendsUK is among the major countries leading in boat building sector across the globe. There has been a shift in preference in the market from sailing yachts to motor yachts hence booming of the powerboat sector of which UK holds a significant share; some UK motor boat builders recoded a minimum of 90% of their production (SEEDA 2007).

Also, demand from China and Russia have driven high the demand of superyacht. Further, marine equipment industry boasts a good share of the world market (Highley et al. 2007); however, it faces stiff completion from other global companies located outside UK (Bellamy, 1998: 34).Development opportunities and constraintsTwo opportunities that grant UK marine engineering sector are close linkages with electronics and aerospace industries and increased support from the local authorities (“First Minister Backs Harris Pye Engineerings Move into Llandow” 2013) since it is considered that the industry has capacity to provide significant employment opportunities, for instance, the Regional Economic Strategy where Weymouth and Portland Borough Council works closely with industry’s stakeholders to improve the sector (Feaver 2011).

On the other hand, development constraints include increasing sea level (Pidgeion, Lorenzoni and Poortinga 2008: 84; Fletcher et al. 2009: 371; Callaway et al. 2012), lack of skilled labour (Driffield, Love & Taylor 2009: 181), competition (Hill 2011; Harris 2014) and unavailability of land for expansion (Lovdal & Neumann 2011).ReferencesBellamy, A. (1998). The UK marine sand and gravel dredging industry: An application of Quaternary geology. Geological Society, London, Engineering Geology Special Publications, 33-46.

Callaway, R. et al. (2012). Review of climate change impacts on marine aquaculture in the UK and Ireland. Aquatic Conservation-Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 22(3), pp.389-421Driffield, N., Love, J.H., & Taylor, K. (2009). Productivity and labour demand effects of inward and outward foreign direct investment on UK industry. Manchester School, 77(2), pp.171-203.Feaver, J. (2011). Marime and marine industries. Dorset marine and coastal topic paper series 2011. “First Minister Backs Harris Pye Engineerings Move into Llandow”.

(2013, June 19). Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales). Online. Accessed from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-334377686.htmlFletcher, S., et al. (2009). Public awareness of marine environmental issues in the UK. Marine Policy, 33(2), pp.370-375.Harris, T. (2014). British Marine’s 20th February 2014 renewal. Online accessed from http://www.britishmarine.com/news/article.asp?ID=31. Highley, D. E., Hetherington, L. E., Brown, T. J., Harrison, D. J., and Jenkins, G. O. (2007). The strategic importance of the marine aggregate industry to the UK.

British Geology Survey Research Report OR/07/019.Hill, C. W. L. (2011). International business: Competing in the global marketplace. New York, McGraw-Hill/Irwin.Lovdal, N., & Neumann, F. (2011). Internationalization as a strategy to overcome industry barriers-An assessment of the marine energy industry. Energy Policy, 39(3), pp. 1093-1100.Pidgeion, N.F., Lorenzoni, I., and Poortinga, W. (2008). Climate change or nuclear power—No thanks! A quantitative study of public perceptions and risk framing in Britain.

Global Environmental Change, 18, pp. 69–85.Smith, H. & Lalwani, C. (1999). The call of the sea: the marine knowledge industry in the UK. Marine Policy, 23(4-5), pp. 397-412.Stem Choices (2010). UK maritime industry. Online. Accessed from http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/ngrf/stem/basics/sources/stem_supplement-uk_maritime_industry.pdf. Taylor, D. A. (2013). Introduction to marine engineering. London, Butterworths.Tooley, M. (2012). Engineering A level curriculum support pack. Routledge.

UK Directory (2014). Marine engineering companies. Online. Accessed from http://www.ukdirectory.co.uk/manufacturing-and-industry/engineering/marine-engineering-companies/.