Introduction The theme of this article is change, and the central concern here is to analyse the role and discuss the competence of British managers in handling industrial changes. Most of the observations are based on work undertaken at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex for the Engineering Industry Training Board. This work, which has been going on for many years, was, in its early stages, primarily concerned with monitoring the impact of new technologies on employment patterns in various sectors of the industry. Later, this monitoring work was supplemented by the analysis of management decision‐making and competitive success within particular sectors of the industry. This article discusses our monitoring of numerically controlled machine tools and the role of management in their adoption. The differences between British managers and their international competitors are analysed with particular reference to their educational background.