Why a technical sales engineer should not be worried about Brexit

by Russell Jay Williamson (December 28th 2020)

At the time of writing (28^TH December 2020), even though a deal has been signed between the EU and the UK, the details are not clear about how this will affect each of us and the industries that we work in.

In this article, I’m summarizing my own opinions as to why I don’t believe that people in Technical sales (Meaning B2B component suppliers to Engineering customers), should be too concerned about their careers during the next few months and possibly years.

NOTE, this is just the opinions that I personally have about the people who have a career in, and are competent in Technical sales or Application Engineering. This is not opinions about how Brexit can affect the wider industry.

1. Covid-19 is more dominant.

No matter what country that you work out of, the ongoing crisis, the aftermath, and the potential for recessions is likely to be the dominant negative factor in the majority of cases in the following months and years. Even after Brexit, it’s likely that the main hinderance that is limiting productivity in projects is that many design engineers are working at home instead of in the office, or in their labs. Brexit may affect the ability to import or export your own company’s products, or your customers’ products, yet the immediate demand for your work will be the amount of activity that design engineers are working on. If indeed Brexit does cause engineering companies to enter financial difficulty, it is less likely that it would affect industry in the same way as for example COVID-19 has affected the Aviation industry globally.

2. You are more employable.

If the worst did happen and you lose your job due to Brexit, (Either by your own company falling into financial difficulty, or the customers that you serve all encounter financial difficulty), as you are likely to have skills and talents above the rest of the workforce, you are likely to be able to get a new job easier. Even in a recession, companies will need to make sales, and if they are in difficulty, they will be more desperate. If you would be able to bring value to a company, and bring in money that they otherwise couldn’t, then this shows that you can be a valuable asset with more chances to be employed.

3. Technology progression is more immune to recessions and political uncertainty.

Even though the sales of technology can be affected from economic and political uncertainty, the workload of engineers that are in stable jobs in general seem to continue. During, and in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, one of the most fundamental pieces of technology that changed society, the iPhone, was designed and launched. Not only that, it was a very expensive consumer item. Even though it was widely thought that the population of the affected countries were struggling financially, millions of people somehow afforded this expensive item (helped by having very long phone contracts, effectively going in dept to buy this). This shows that even in difficult times, if technology has moved forward enough to make their lives better, the money can be found to afford it.

On another note, a recent example of political uncertainty has been the situation the Turkey. Whatever is your opinion on the causes, their currency (The Lira) took a huge collapse in 2018, near enough halving its value VS the US dollar from January to August in that year. The sales into and out of that country may have suffered, however the work of design engineers did not stop. Design Engineering work continued. It did help that many of the companies had sponsorship from the government, yet this is not abnormal these days in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and how governments have supported suffering industries. Because of this, anyone working as an Application Engineer, or supporting design engineers of Turkish companies, in my opinion were less likely to see their own personal workload drop.

4. Engineering company layoffs tend to lag the market.

With the exception of how COVID-19 has affected the aviation industry with it’s near complete shut down of all aeroplane orders, it can take engineering companies more time to realise the effect of any wider economy slowdown. To close down and shut an engineering company, especially niche and specialised companies, rarely is a swift decision taken in the moment. Reasons potentially are that contracts have been signed and need to be fulfilled to avoid large penalties. Also CAPX can include investment in specialised manufacturing or test equipment that can be harder to liquidate, especially if the company and the equipment is highly specialised. All of this means that it’s unlikely that a Technical Sales Engineer, or Application Engineer is going to lose their job in quick time. If they will eventually lose their job, or their key customers fold, there will be other job opportunities in the new industries that have popped up, for example look at how companies like Zoom or Amazon have flourished during the COVID-19 crisis. There will be an overlap in the falling and rising industry. Therefore if the worst happened and you were to lose your job, you could potentially switch to a different industry on the up.

In conclusion:

If you are competent Sales Engineer, in Technical Sales, or Application Engineering, it is likely that even if the worst happens and you lose your job, you have the potential to have the transferrable skills to switch to a different role in a different more stable industry. Certain industries will survive any problems created from Brexit, and you should remain positive that you can find yourself a new role in one of those industries if you need to.

If you would like to find out more information on how to adapt to the new circumstances regarding the COVID-19 crisis, they you can see the new book: