In case you haven't seen this Make 'Engineer' a protected title U.K.-based petition, I thought I'd share it to see what thoughts you had. It has spawned a good discussion in the Institute of Measurement and Control LinkedIn Group. Control magazine's editor-in-chief Walt Boyes opines:

The fact is that the automation profession is not strictly speaking an engineering discipline. It is a multidisciplinary skill set with some engineering expertise, some IT expertise, some process expertise, and so forth. ISA recognized this when they set out to create what they call the Certified Automation Professional (CAP). I am aware of several companies whose chief I&C managers are not engineers-- one in particular I know is a mathematician and statistician.

Protecting the title is good, but defining the work is critical. Just because you are an engineer does not mean you know what you are doing in a specialized field like measurement and control, even though your professors at university said so.

For the record, I am not a degreed engineer. I have been an automation professional for nearly 40 years.

What do think about the use of the title of engineer and automation professional?