Pearson Engineering has almost four decades of experience in delivering equipment that protects the lives of soldiers in combat environments. As the company approaches its 40th anniversary in 2025, Ian Bell has taken the reins as Group CEO, taking Pearson Engineering into a new era of growth, and with it, demonstrable impact for the North East.
Following a successful military career, and senior commercial appointments across the globe, what has brought you to Pearson Engineering?
The opportunity to join Pearson Engineering was a genuinely exciting proposition. The company has a fantastic reputation across the defence sector, having provided equipment that is tried, tested and proven with the British Army and allies in almost forty countries. Pearson Engineering’s equipment makes a real difference to the solider on the battlefield, providing the necessary means to overcome obstacles and to defeat explosive threats. This is really important, life preserving work and I jumped at the opportunity to take the helm as we look to evolve our products. The future will be characterised by smart technologies, automation and AI, taking the human away from what soldiers call ‘Dull, Dirty and Dangerous’ tasks.
In joining Pearson Engineering, I have also become responsible as Group CEO for our subsidiary, Responsive Engineering, led by my colleague Rachel Mansfield. Working collaboratively with Pearson Engineering, Responsive Engineering provides contract manufacturing into the defence sector. Together, we’re looking ahead to a decade of secured work and a sustainable future for Armstrong Works.
What is your vision for the future of Pearson Engineering and Responsive Engineering?
We have an excellent opportunity to further our product range, maximising the potential of the technology we have developed, and that of our parent company, to support post-conflict mine clearance in Ukraine. We will also continue to evolve and develop our core product range which provides ‘protected mobility’ to our armed forces.
I also see Pearson Engineering becoming a bigger and more influential partner to the UK Government across its various programmes where heavy manufacturing and maintenance, repair and overhaul of equipment is required. We are already contributing to all of the British Army’s current armoured vehicle programmes in various ways and we have more to offer.
What does the future of ‘protected mobility’ look like?
Protected mobility is a term that is used by the military to refer to its ability to move to places of its choosing whilst overcoming the various obstacles that it might encounter on the battlefield. Typically, such intervention has been carried out by heavy duty, mechanical equipment. I expect this will endure for decades to come, but it will be supplemented by enhanced detection technologies that allow networked sensors to automatically identify obstacles and select the right tool for the job. At Pearson Engineering, we are developing robotic ‘mission packs’ for uncrewed vehicles that will provide Commanders with wide ranging choices. It is all about protecting the soldier so they can do the job they need to do to defend the nation.
What about skills and technology? How will Pearson Engineering keep pace with advances and continue to support our Armed Forces?
Technology across defence evolves quickly and we must hire the right people with the right skills to ensure that our products are commercially competitive, and that they keep pace with a rapidly evolving threat scenario in conflict environments. This needs to be balanced against the wisdom that is brought by people who have worked in defence for decades. Whilst threats and technology evolve quickly, Armed Forces don’t evolve quite so rapidly. We need to balance the innovative and novel with equipment that supports ‘Tactics, Techniques and Procedures’ that are known and proven.
With a focus on global affairs and central Government in the UK, how does Pearson Engineering deliver benefit to the North East?
It is really important to me that Pearson Engineering is a force for good in the region. The heart of Pearson Engineering can be found in our ambition to help people to overcome very practical challenges to mobility with our products. We want to apply the same to our local communities, though perhaps more figuratively, helping them to overcome adversity.
We already do some great work in supporting prosperity in the North East with a focus on promoting the region, grass roots engineering skills, the veteran community, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I can only see our commitment to this growing. We are a major employer with more than 300 staff building on a proud heritage to deliver the next generation of protected mobility for our armed forces. It is important that we continue to invest in our people and that we bring on the next generation too with active internships, apprenticeship and graduate schemes. We currently have 18 apprentices at Armstrong Works and they’re working on some of the UK’s biggest and most influential programmes – I don’t know if they know it yet, but they’re genuinely making history from our site.
This all has a knock-on effect for the North East with an improved skills base, greater buying power and an active supply chain that can attract central Government spending.
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