I would assume there are far more opportunties in the US and Canada than the UK, purely for the fact in the UK we no longer have any complete civil airframe manufacturers (except for BN and a few PFA /LAA manufacturers). Even BN rarely manufacture stuff these days, it tends to be all mod work for existing customers.
Westland helicopters has a small flight test department but not more than a handful of FTEs. Britten Norman again only have a requirement for 2 or 3 FTEs. Marshalls and FRA may have some requirement for FTEs, but I don't really have any first hand knowledge of these two companies.
Getting into a graduate engineering position at Qinetic at the Boscombe Down site is probably your best bet for getting FTE work in the UK.
The MSC in Flight Dynamics at Cranfield may be a course to consider. However in the UK FTE stuff is just very rare. Took me about five years to find an airworthiness job that also included FTE duties after graduation.
However as I already held a frozen ATPL at that point I realised that if I wanted to fly then commercial aviation was a far better option than FTE work.
Last edited by portsharbourflyer; 9th Apr 2008 at 16:00.