As we come to the end of 2015 we thought we’d take a look back at the year and share just some of the stories, achievements and highlights from the world of Engineering and Manufacturing.

January –  Whilst January saw the beginning of Scotland’s Year of Food and Drink, the Scotsman started the year with an eye-catching story for Scottish Engineers (and Engineering Recruiters!)

• New engineers worth billions to Scots economy – Scotland needs to find more than 147,000 extra engineers by 2022

February – The world was divided as we tried to decide on the colour of “the dress”. Were you team gold/white or blue/black? Meanwhile:

• ‘Mechanical Engineer’ was voted one of the top 3 jobs in the UK
• Touch Bionics’ i-limb was chosen for Royal Mail stamps celebrating British ingenuity

March – As George Osborne delivered the sixth and final budget of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition we found out the answer to this question:

• What degree should you study to become a billionaire? – Engineering!

April – From clear Marmite to Park-and-Zorb schemes, not forgetting Google’s Pacman game the month started with a few April Fools! And speaking of creativity:

• Ingenuity and imagination were celebrated at the 2015 Invention Awards

May – The General Election dominated most of the headlines this month but there were other memorable stories too:

• Scottish Engineering celebrated it’s 150th Anniversary 
• Ahead of Back to the Future Day, Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru set a new record for continuous travel as a controlling pilot on an autonomously powered hoverboard

June – June was slightly longer than normal with the fourth leap second since 2000 added to the last day of the month, and whilst time was leaping there were others jumping:

• Over 800 women and men celebrated National Women in Engineering Day (23rd June 2015) with a world record breaking high five jump

July –  The BBC shared that UK unemployment had risen for the first time in two years.

• We found 10 Reasons Engineers Make Good Partners (we’re sure there are more!)

August –  As many celebrated the record number of higher passes awarded to Scottish pupils, engineers shared an important lesson:

• Thousands of engineers started using the hashtag #ilooklikeanengineer following comments about an image used in a recruitment advertising campaign.

September – NASA announced that liquid water flows Mars, and in keeping with the theme of liquids in space:

• Scottish distilleries investigated how malt whisky matures in space, and worked out how to drink it in microgravity
  

October – Back to the Future Day arrived and we were all just a little disappointed not to be travelling to work in flying cars.

• The Forth Rail Bridge was named Scotland’s favourite Engineering icon.
• Donald Miller, John Logie Baird, Henry Dyer and Sir George Bruce were added to the IESIS Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame

November – Storm Abigail, the first of the A-Z named storms, hit the UK and Glasgow Engineer took the competition by storm:

• Glasgow University, Mechanical Engineering student Morven Fraser won the 2015 Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award for her body panel energy storage concept.

December – Tim Peake becomes Britain’s first astronaut to fly to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, a little closer to home, for a lot of Scottish businesses, commuters and Engineers there was one particularly memorable headline for the month of December:

• Engineer Robert McCulloch discovers the fault in the Forth Road Bridge

What headlines and highlights will you remember from 2015? Let us know in the comments below.