With the gender pay gap across all areas of the economy receiving increasing levels of scrutiny, The Engineer’s 2018 Salary Survey points to a widening gap between the salaries of the UK’s male and female engineers.
Produced in partnership with technical recruitment consultancy CBSbutler, the survey – now in its fourth year – attracted responses from 2,864 engineers from across the UK.
Female engineers, who accounted for just 7.2 per cent of respondents, are paid on average £35,800. This compares to an average of £48,720 for their male colleagues and marks a widening of the £10,000 pay gap identified by our 2017 salary survey.
READ THE FULL 2018 SALARY SURVEY HERE
This gap can be partly explained by the difference in seniority among male and female respondents. For instance, just 2.4 per cent and 11.3 per cent of male respondents describe themselves as graduates and junior engineers respectively, compared with 10.2 per cent and 20.3 per cent of female respondents.
However, the findings do suggest that male engineers at all levels of seniority are paid more than their female counterparts. Female graduates and junior engineers earn an average of £27,552, for example, compared with £31,051 for male engineers, a gap of around £3,500. This gap jumps to around £10,000 for senior engineers and managers, and widens even further at director level and above, where women earn £46,053, and men £73,595, a huge difference of £27,542.
More generally, this year’s survey tells a story of stagnation, with many key measures showing little, if any change, from last year’s results.
And although there are significant regional, sectoral and seniority based variations, the mean average salary for engineers taking part in this year’s survey is £47,896, which marks a slight decrease on last year’s average of £48,197. To put this in perspective, our 2017 survey showed a year on year average salary increase of six per cent.
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With industry facing a period of growing uncertainty, this stagnation is perhaps unsurprising. And Brexit is clearly looming large in the thoughts of many UK engineers. 61 per cent of those surveyed are concerned about the impact of Brexit on industry, whilst 37 per cent say they are worried about the impact that leaving the EU would have on their job security.
Despite such concerns though, UK engineers appear to be a fairly settled bunch, and although just 32.7 percent of the total response group are content with their pay more than half say that they are happy in their current roles, and more than 80 per cent expect to stay in industry for at least the next five years.
We will be analysing the findings of this year’s survey in greater detail over the coming weeks and months.
The Engineer salary survey 2018 – Key stats
- 2,864 responses
- Average age: 45.8
- Average salary: £47, 896 £48,197 = YOY decrease of 0.6per cent
- Highest paying Sector – Oil& gas sector (£53, 913), this is closely followed by Renewables / Nuclear (£52,653)
- Female respondents are paid on average £13k less than their male colleagues – a widening of the £10k gender pay gap reported in last year’s survey
- 8 per cent of respondents are considering a change of job (down from 45 per cent in 2017)
There was a study done by Oswald and Goodall using Australian labour market stats which shows that the frequency of pay rise requests by men and women is roughly equal. The granting of pay rises however was lower for females with the exception of those aged under 41 where it was on a par with men. There are some issues with this study in that female workers are less likely to be responsible for negotiating their wages (i.e. they were more likely to be unionised and subject to collective bargaining). The study also omits any information about negotiation of wages by gender at job offer stage and it notes that part time employees both male and female were less likely to ask for a pay rise with females forming the larger proportion of this group.
The study also has no data either on the frequency of pay rise requests either. It isn’t a perfect model but the Australian labour market is the only one with the depth of data that is needed to perform this type of study so its the best we have.
Nonetheless the study clearly shows a 15% gender based wage gap which is similar to most major economies. On a positive note this study suggests that younger female workers are asking for and winning pay rises as frequently as their male counterparts.
Given that pay rates for men and women are still unequal despite the advances made by the younger female cohort it seems that there is a case for every woman reading this article to knock on her bosses door to have a chat about her salary.
In order to close the pay gap women may need to ask for pay rises more often than men until parity is achieved. To quote Emmeline Pankhurst “actions not words”.
P.S. If your employer doesn’t value you as much as your male colleagues there are plenty of others who will. Given the rarity of female engineers there is even a case to argue that you should be paid more than the men. If you are feeling particularly daring you might even mention this in your chat with the boss. Good luck!