The engineers around at operations centre (7)
I believe the answer is:
theatre
'operations centre' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'the engineers around at' is the wordplay.
'engineers' becomes 're' (Royal Engineers).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the'+'re'='there'
'there' going around 'at' is 'THEATRE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for theatre that I've seen before include "Play venue" , "World of drama" , "(Lecture) room" , "Audience" , "Major area of military activity" .)