Technical Workers: An Overview

Abstract

Government reports and industrial training board studies have placed technical workers below professional engineers and technologists and above skilled manual and clerical occupations. Such studies separate ‘draughtsmen’ from ‘other technicians’, and training programmes separate ‘other technicians’ into ‘technician engineer’ and ‘technician’. All these efforts are directed at trying to improve the status of technical work in general. In practice however, this separation is difficult to sustain, and the status of the British technician remains comparatively low. The majority of technical workers I interviewed had little confidence in the broad labels which are used by others to conveniently summarise their place within the division of labour. Most preferred to be called by a specific title, e.g. draughtsman, or ‘jig and tool draughtsman’ or estimator, or ‘tool designer’. General titles such as technician engineer, technician or technologist, were considered vacuous.