My salary as an experienced Professional Chartered Engineer, working in the private sector for over 30 years, has actually lost value at the rate of about 1.4% per annum relative to the cost of living for the past 15 years, whilst graduate starting salaries have flat lined or barely kept up with the RPI. Thank you. With a degree in Electrical Engineering, and 24 years design experience in ship design, I am currently working in a warehouse on little more than minimum wage.
After a paid internship with a good design consultancy in the mudlands I turned down a £22k offer and took a graduate scheme in financial services in London starting at £28k with £10k annual bonus. Check out our Salary Tax Calculator. If anyone has any thoughts I would be interested to hear them. Fact is that engineers get paid the correct salary as set by supply and demand on a global basis. You have to realistically be out of your mind to think that an experienced engineer today being required for remunerations for £40,000 or less is well paid. There seem to be only two ways to progress financially as an engineer. It shows the ability to learn and work hard to obtain a degree unlike those in (dare I say it) the humanities whose hardest part of the course is getting out of bed before 10am! I wouldn’t consider £30,000 per month as high pay. is there an exam like there is in Germany, USA, Canada? Most German engineers I know live in apartments, not houses. Demand that barriers to entrepreneurship are removed, simplified and subsidised. A technician is a technician and a plumber is a plumber ( with due respect to either professions)
The fact that we pay GPs too much means that they tend to retire early, which means the nation does not get the benefit of the skills they have. That’s what experienced engineers are, they’re disposable, get them in to sort out the mess and then get rid of them engineers once things are ok again.
This career should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as minimum wage.
The comments here about engineers being paid a lot are mistaken.
Now we are in an intriguing possition where we find optical clensing engineers, which are called window cleaners in other countries. Then there’s lawyers. Chemical engineering graduates earning on average more than anyone except dentists, with a mean starting salary of £29,582. 1) Everybody nowadays is called an ‘Engineer’ .
In general the skills and value of engineers are better recognised and rewarded in capital intensive industries such as utilities or oil and gas rather than lower margin manufacturing where labour costs are critical. This does not allow you to generalize to all Project Managers. they have NO control over the project as this has been pre-determined by a higher authority within the organisation.
Their remit would be to get the title Engineer protected in the UK as in Europe and prevent unqualified people doing Engineer’s jobs on the cheap. From this you then become an engineer at around £30k-£35k, then with chartership with the ICE, you can push up to senior engineer of around £40k. It seems that STEM degrees, although being the most sought after by employers, usually pay less, starting off than your average call centre. If it was true then Supply & Demand would increase the pay. I graduated in Civil in 1999 having been sponsored through Uni by an old and well established contractor. One thing worth bearing in mind is that many people get stuck in their chosen country when they discover house prices in the UK have risen much faster than in their chosen work country. You need to move jobs. That being the case, I was making the point that it is good that to ‘engineer’ something is an activity that anyone can pursue, such as many people who would not be eligible for accreditation, such as students, technicians, or enthusiasts, without them necessarily having to present a certificate to prove they are in fact ‘engineers’. However it seems to me most graduate engineer careers went that advanced. Compare this to other professions and you’ll realise that they’re in a different universe. The only way you can make good money is either go into oil and gas or play on companies despirations (when they need a quick turn around you charge a kings ransom). I don’t know what a tapped hole is either. I could go on about how real Engineers who actually do something useful in society are absolutely Engineering salaries are generally quite good, and its a good career. Maybe you want to work abroad? That is the attitude that demeans the title for people who have worked to achieve it.
Generally we get to know more and more about less and less. Most of the graduates have no clue what they do, and their university training has no value in the work environment. Graduate structural engineers can expect to earn a starting salary of at least £22,000. UK salaries are Lower than the EU? Civil Engineers in UK get paid 30 to 50% less than many other industries like Law, Accounting, Medicine or Finance&Banking. How much do you earn per year? What engineering are you referring to that anyone can persue?
If a doctor makes a mistake one patient might die, if any of the other professions make a mistake somebody might lose some money , if an engineer in the aerospace industry makes a mistake up to 600 people a time could die.
Qualified, experienced jobseekers use totaljobs to search for jobs. Someone who creates, analyzes, and produces a product through the use of a theoretically based skillset. Engineers are still paid rubbish and are considered as dirt on the bottom of ‘managements’ shoes. The Engineering institutions (IMECHE, IET etc) haven’t done enough to maintain high standards.
https://thecivildiscourse.com/2016/10/18/competitive-industry-uncompetitive-salaries/. I am so glad I jumped into projects as it removed from being behind a computer screen all day and has also allowed to live a nice lifestyle in the North of England.
Formula 1 is exceptional in many ways however and the competitiveness of the sport means that F1 engineer salaries are considerably higher than the industry norms. I briefly worked for a small firm of 20 people and was paid minimum wage with unpaid overtime. It’s crazy. Add this up and this position/s is possibly the most diverse range of skills required so where are there any jobs generally earning £45K + per annum. In brief, the award of Pr.Eng. Why is this happening? Ciao A company hires a degree qualified engineer because they are bright enough not to need much trainig. report from the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HESCU) found that average salaries for engineering graduates tend to be above those for other subjects because of the larger proportion of graduates working in full-time engineering roles.
Two conclusions: 1 No one should be legally allowed to call themselves an engineer if they aren’t qualifued as one: I can’t go around calling myself a doctor for example and2: in the UK at least if you want to be a well paid ‘engineer’ do not bother with the absolute con of graduate education. Probably something mechanical.
£30000 - £38000 per annum + Excellent Benefits, Temporary Service Engineer(Windows and Doors Installations), © Copyright and database rights Totaljobs Group Ltd 2020. Salary Survey 2019. I have worked with people with PhD’s and found them to be useless, no common sense. The best project managers are those that have come up through the ranks and have an interest in and can actually do the job that they are managing.
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Globalisation is part of it but also more fundamentally the profits for building are not there in comparison to say printing £1Bn of debt over a day and getting £1m in fees eg investment banking. In my experience in Nuclear you cannot just take engineers from india and china as they will not pass security clearances to work in UK Nuclear projects. We are meant to be cheap and deliver things quickly. When I resigned the regional director summoned me to their London HQ office to explain, which I did. What examination are you referring to for the CEng? If your company is up-to-date you probably have a quality manual and training material where all the terms you need are explained.
You don’t learn those things on an engineering degree. My advice is don’t be so swift to judge. Unfortunately we live in a gloabalized world.
My salary as an experienced Professional Chartered Engineer, working in the private sector for over 30 years, has actually lost value at the rate of about 1.4% per annum relative to the cost of living for the past 15 years, whilst graduate starting salaries have flat lined or barely kept up with the RPI. But as with everything else, reward requires risk. Companies, like big banks, who need tax money to survive should go bankrupt. I would not dispute that engineering graduates are paid well, but experienced engineers are a whole different ball game. I graduated in 2008 with a 1st Class MEng (Mechanical). However, above a certain size, I think it becomes impossible to do both.
I love engineering but my seniors during the internship with very honest with me, their salaries were stuck at £40k and three guys leading the department were accountants and salesmen. Oil & gas engineers, railway signalling engineers, mining engineers, marine salvage engineers, can often earn £90-150,000 a year, albeit sometimes working in rough locations, and often in tax-free countries. I would only advise someone to go into engineering if they truly have a passion for the subject and are prepared to settle for an average lifestyle which will most likely involve more paperwork and politics than actual engineering. They could be treated by a trained nurse on a third of the salary and only sent to a person with a doctorate when the nurse can’t work out what’s wrong. Here is the truth in your face.
Anecdotes about better-paid burger flippers carry little weight. (1) being generally clueless about the job, One more point: It doesn’t help that in the UK, any repair technician, janitor, or plumber is also referred to as an engineer. However, if you were a GP you’d likely meet and marry someone also on a high income – very likely another GP. This link shows all salaries by industry, sector, speciality, location etc.
The design jobs were moving abroad and the recession was about to kill all the contracts. The smallest accounts to be paid first. All that’s probably happened is that more part qualified assistant technicians have been hired as engineers at 20,000 pounds per annum. There is a shortage of engineers – who are happy with little pay.
I am repeatedly told that my previous design experience does not apply to non-marine engineering, so I am re-training.
When you see a serious engineering role come up, one where experience is essential, it’s usually a temporary or short-term contract. Your problem with your graduate is that there is so much to learn that some basics have to be dropped and can be picked up easily once in a post as much taught may not relate to the job one actually finds after graduating. I wonder because that seems quite low by my experience. Never ever you say again that engineers are well paid because they are not.