Ethics and Inclusion
Many of the principles of Inclusive Engineering have a crossover with the requirements of engineering ethics. Ensuring that we produce engineering outputs and outcomes which are inclusive and accessible to all; which acknowledge the need for equality; which avoid built in biases; which acknowledge the social justice requirements of our engineering solutions; which rely on our values as well as our principles; and which leave no-one behind, are all principles that can be seen as both inclusive and ethical.
The Statement of Ethical Principles for the Engineering Profession, UK
In the UK, engineering professionals are required to follow the Code of Ethical Principles for Engineering and Technology, published by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering Council UK. The 2026 version of the Statement of Ethical Principles recognises that engineering and technology have the power to improve lives and address the critical challenges that the world faces. The code states that engineers, technologists and technicians must place the safety and wellbeing of people and planet at the forefront of their decisions, actively pursuing beneficial outcomes and challenging unethical behaviour. Engineering professionals must work to identify risks and prevent harms in the systems they design, build, maintain, through to disposal. They must manage technology safely, responsibly, and ethically throughout its entire lifecycle, ensuring that its development, deployment, and use contribute positively and equitably to society and the environment. Engineering professionals must meet not only today’s needs but enable safe, sustainable, and thriving futures. All aspiring and practising engineering professionals – including students, apprentices, educators, trades, and managers – are part of a community defined by problem solving, integrity, creativity and responsibility.
The statement has five key tenets:
The Inclusive Engineering Framework is a practical and accessible method of ensuring that the requirements of the Statement of Ethical Principles are met.
The statement has five key tenets:
- Honesty and Integrity
- Responsibility to society
- Accuracy and rigour
- Leadership and communication
- Responsibility for the future of technology, society and the environment
The Inclusive Engineering Framework is a practical and accessible method of ensuring that the requirements of the Statement of Ethical Principles are met.
Inclusion in Accreditation and Professional Registration Frameworks
The requirements for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are embedded in both the UK's Higher Education accreditation framework for engineering and the Professional Registration Standard, called AHEP-4 and UK-SPEC respectively (the fourth edition of the Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes, AHEP4, and the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment, UK-SPEC).
The fourth edition of AHEP contains a new requirement for Inclusive Design for the first time, along with the requirement to demonstrate personal and social skills and awareness of diversity and inclusion issues.
Under AHEP 4, the integration of inclusive design affects specific learning outcome (LO) categories, particularly those related to Design and the Engineer and Society. The core requirements include:
The fourth edition of AHEP contains a new requirement for Inclusive Design for the first time, along with the requirement to demonstrate personal and social skills and awareness of diversity and inclusion issues.
Under AHEP 4, the integration of inclusive design affects specific learning outcome (LO) categories, particularly those related to Design and the Engineer and Society. The core requirements include:
- Inclusive Engineering Practice: Degree programmes accredited by the Engineering Council must embed inclusive design within the curriculum. Students are evaluated on their ability to adopt an inclusive approach to engineering practice.
- Design Solutions (LO5): Students must design solutions for complex problems that evidence originality and meet societal, user, and customer needs. This involves proactive consideration of diversity, inclusion, and cultural matters, as well as industry standards and codes of practice.
- General Transferable Skills: Students are expected to demonstrate an awareness of inclusive behaviours and team-working skills. They must also communicate clearly about design issues to audiences with non-technical backgrounds.
Ethics of Digital Technology
In addition to the ethical principles described in the Statement of Ethical Principles for the Engineering Profession, it is worth expanding further on the values and ethical principles that need to be considered when developing new digital technology that requires ethical principles to be effectively hardwired or programmed in to the technology during development. This relates to artificial intelligence systems, the use of big data, machine learning, the internet of things, robotic systems and other similar digital technology. Ethical decisions will need to be made which relate to fairness, equality and social justice, and these decisions taken during development may be difficult to reverse, and even difficult to detect, during the use of this technology. These technologies are very often built on historical data, and have a propensity to promulgate past inequalities unless care it taken to ensure that this is not the case.
A framework developed by the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) called the Ethical OS Toolkit contains tools for visualizing and anticipating future risk related to technology products, acknowledging that once technology is released and reaches scale it may be used for purposes beyond the original intention. The toolkit contains foresight methods for initiating important conversations with product teams, including examples of current signals of future trends. It also contains a Risk Mitigation Manual with 8 risk zones where hard-to anticipate
and unwelcome consequences are most likely to emerge. Finally, it contains 7 suggested strategies for future-proofing.
The eight risk zones to consider when developing digital technology are given as:
A framework developed by the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) called the Ethical OS Toolkit contains tools for visualizing and anticipating future risk related to technology products, acknowledging that once technology is released and reaches scale it may be used for purposes beyond the original intention. The toolkit contains foresight methods for initiating important conversations with product teams, including examples of current signals of future trends. It also contains a Risk Mitigation Manual with 8 risk zones where hard-to anticipate
and unwelcome consequences are most likely to emerge. Finally, it contains 7 suggested strategies for future-proofing.
The eight risk zones to consider when developing digital technology are given as:
- Truth, Disinformation, and Propaganda
- Addiction & the Dopamine Economy
- Economic & Asset Inequalities
- Machine Ethics & Algorithmic Biases
- Surveillance State
- Data Control & Monetization
- Implicit Trust & User Understanding
- Hateful & Criminal Actors?
- How could bad actors use your technology to subvert or attack the truth?
- How could someone use this technology to undermine trust in established social institutions, like media, medicine, democracy, science?
- What does “extreme” use, addiction or unhealthy engagement with your technology look like?
- Will people or communities who don’t have access to this technology suffer a setback compared to those who do? What does that setback look like? What new differences will there be between the “haves” and “have-nots” of this technology?
- Are you using machine learning and robots to create wealth, rather than human labour?
- Does this technology make use of deep data sets and machine learning? If so, are there gaps or historical biases in the data that might bias the technology?
- Have you seen instances of personal or individual bias enter into your product’s algorithms?
- How might a government or military body utilize this technology to increase its capacity to survey or otherwise infringe upon the rights of its citizens?
- Will the data your tech is generating have long-term consequences for the freedoms and reputation of individuals?
- If you profit from the use or sale of user data, do your users share in that profit? What options would you consider for giving users the right to share profits on their own data?
- Does your technology do anything your users don’t know about, or would probably be surprised to find out about? If so, why are you not sharing this information explicitly—and what kind of backlash might you face if users found out?
- How could someone use your technology to bully, stalk, or harass other people?
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Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 is the UK legislation which legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It ensures consistency in what employers and employees need to do to make their workplaces a fair environment and comply with the law. The protected characteristics include age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. New measures from April 2017 stem from the introduction Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Read more from EqualEngineers here. Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)
The public sector Equality Duty ( PSED ) requires public bodies, and others carrying out public functions, to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities. Read more here. In the engineering sector, any organisation who provides services or products to the public must comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. 
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The characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act 2010 are:
Positive Action is when an employer takes steps to help or encourage certain groups of people with different needs, or who are disadvantaged in some way, access work or training. Positive action is lawful under the Equality Act.
Positive Discrimination is unlawful. Find out more. |