The UK has a great engineering tradition, especially from the Victorian and Empire eras, all the way up to WW2, but it seems that after that there was a dramatic and incredibly short sighted turn to economisation and avoiding investment.

The absolute poster child for this was the UK space programme, which was cancelled just before the launch of its first rocket. The director of the programme decided to defy orders and launch anyway, on the grounds that everything was ready and he was in Australia. But this pervades everything. The TBMs for Euston HS2 have been bought, but are going to spend the next year buried doing nothing, because there's a persistent desire to cancel HS2 after most of the work has been done but before any of the benefits are gained.

Concorde somehow escaped cancellation multiple times. The UK developed its own nuclear reactor technology (Magnox) then gave up and let Electricite de France run everything.

I've heard this complaint from several people in Cambridge's "startup" industry too. There are hardly any angel investors. The amounts of money available are tiny. Got an idea? Tough, you'll have to develop it in your own literal garden shed at your own expense. The local capital owners are far more interested in property, which doesn't require any thinking.