The Association of Consultant Engineers (Ace) has revealed that Britain has a shortage of 20,000 engineers, a figure likely to rise by 4,000 next year.

To meet demand, Ace is calling on the Home Office to relax immigration rules so that civil, structural, environmental and building services engineers can be headhunted from around the world.

With increasing numbers of major engineering-driven projects, including the 2012 Olympics, Crossrail, new high-speed railways, and ambitious “urban regeneration” schemes the length and breadth of the country, Britain needs an army of engineers to realise them.

Just as we require ever more cheap labour from across the world to clean offices, sweep streets, drive buses and pick vegetables, now we need engineers from Poland, India, China and elsewhere to design, build and maintain the country’s infrastructure.

Britain is paying the price for a switch from being an industrial powerhouse to a financial services driven economy and is increasingly seen as a nation of consumers rather than producers and that life is all about borrowing large sums of money to buy homes and cram them with high-tech gadgets. But even shopping malls and the complex infrastructure underpinning them have to be engineered by someone…increasingly foreigners holding senior jobs.

Said, Tim Feest, executive director of the Occupational Standards Council for Engineering: “We do need an army of engineers: but if we want them home-grown, we have to bring about a change in attitudes and perceptions; and start to recognise and reward them accordingly.”