Latest news: Dyson founder's investment plea

The government needs to place more emphasis on hardware and engineering to create new jobs and spark growth in the economy, Sir James Dyson has suggested. 28/09/2012

In an interview with the BBC, the industrial designer and founder of Dyson explained it is not always the best idea to invest in the likes of software and social media, which are currently successful but are not necessarily creators of employment.

'The hardware trade around the world is growing at a much faster rate than social media or anything that's going on in Silicon Roundabout. Hardware creates jobs, it creates exports, it creates wealth. I'm not sure that Google and Facebook do that.'

He went on to explain that his biggest worry is that the UK is creating a lack of graduate engineers. 'There's a 50,000 shortage now, in a few years time we'll be 200,000 short. Britain produces fewer engineers out of our universities than the Philippines.'

Sir Dyson, who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner, added that because a large number of postgraduate researchers in the field were from abroad, they are more likely to take their ideas overseas with them rather than develop them in Britain.

This comes after deputy prime minister Nick Clegg stated the engineering and manufacturing sector remains at the centre of the government's plans, as they seek to improve the health of the UK economy.