The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior fellow and remained so until his death.

[1] Conceived in the late 1960s, during the Apollo space program and Harold Wilson's espousal of "white heat of technology", the Fellowship of Engineering was born in the year of Concorde's first commercial flight.

[15] The Academy's premises, 3–4 Carlton House Terrace, are in a Grade I listed building overlooking St James's Park, designed by architect John Nash and owned by the Crown Estate.

[18] The Academy is one of four agencies that receive funding from the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for activities that support government policy on public understanding of science and engineering.

[19] As part of its programme to communicate the benefits and value of engineering to society, the Academy publishes a quarterly magazine, Ingenia [1].

The Academy says that Ingenia is written for a non-specialist audience and is "aimed at all those with an interest in engineering, whether working in business and industry, government, academia or the financial community".