Happy academics prove that money isn’t everything

Based on responses from 2743 engineers working across 11 different sectors, this year’s survey – which was published earlier this summer – found that despite receiving the lowest average annual salary amongst UK engineers (£43,809), 61 per cent of academics are content in their current roles.

This contrasts with the energy sector – which despite offering amongst the highest average salaries (£51,953) appears to have a relatively unhappy workforce. Just 45.7 per cent said they were happy in their roles.

Interestingly, despite being reasonably content in their roles in comparison with other sectors, academics are generally unhappy with their pay levels. Just 31.7 per cent of respondents from this sector told us that they are happy with what they get paid.

One explanation for academics’ overall contentment could be the fact that they tend to receive more holiday than their colleagues in other areas with 41.5 per cent of respondents telling us that they enjoy more than 30 days paid leave per year.