His colleagues refer to him as a ‘bit of an engineering superstar’ and for good reason – James Veale has been crowned young design engineer of the year.

For his Witchford, Ely based employers GiroNEX it's a considerable feather in their cap.

A spokesman for parent company GB Innomech said: "James landed the award in recognition of the huge technical contribution he's making at such an early point in his industrial career.

"He has excellent engineering, marketing and interpersonal skills but is also happy to invest time mentoring younger students, helping them problem solve and inspiring them to consider engineering as a career. "

James collected his award at the 10th annual British Engineering Excellence Awards ceremony in London.

James joined GiroNEX as a graduate engineer in 2017 and went on to help the company launch its Cube system for automated precision powder dispensing earlier this year.

He was chosen as the overall winner within his category in recognition of his technical contribution in helping GiroNEX to develop and launch its first product series at an early point in his own career.

He was also commended for his personal qualities as an ambassador for the engineering profession.

The judges said they were also impressed by his involvement in helping local secondary schools to run competitive robotics events and getting their students excited about engineering design and programming.

GiroNEX Ltd is a Cambridgeshire based technology company building state-of-the-art intelligent automated gravimetric weighing instruments for powder dispensing. As a spin-out from GB Innomech, Gironex is solely focussed on developing its dispensing technology for a range of environments and markets.