Well, it's not all that bad, apart from the thing that occurred to the British Metal workers, or whatever name it's got these days...
Fact is that there's still a engineering industry, maybe not well known with Joe Average, but to give you an idea;
- Terex in Motherwell
- Caterpillar in Peterlee
- Liebherr in Sunderland
- Nissan in Sunderland
- JCB in... forgot the name I'm afraid
Just to name a few, and then there's the Rolls Royce airplane engine works, and obviously the car division alongside Bentley, Land Rover, the Cummins works, and McLaren in Woking...
Now these are the ones that spring to mind, but there are several other smaller companies that are still much in business...wether it be for the aircraft industry or off shore industry, they all play important roles in the trading of the UK. Maybe they're not British owned any more, the fact remains that there's still a engineering industry...
Cheers, Patrick