Special projects editor
A new survey puts graduate salaries at top engineering firms way behind those in other sectors. That’s dangerous for the companies and damaging for the whole industry.
There were some slivers of good news in the latest annual state-of-the-nation EngineeringUK report released this week.
The country’s engineering turnover is up, more young people see an engineering career as desirable, and almost as many girls as boys now gain a GCSE pass grade in physics.
Unfortunately, there were also plenty of depressingly familiar statistics about the need for more engineers, the lack of understanding and approval of engineering careers by parents and teachers, and the number of young people choosing not to enter the profession.
One of the typically trumpeted statistics was the salary premium that engineering graduates enjoy: their average starting salary was £26,500, 20 per cent higher than the average for all graduates.
The problem is that this statistic, like most used to illustrate the industry’s skills issues, doesn’t tell the full story. There is no single problem called “the engineering skills shortage”. There are a series of different challenges facing different companies in different sectors.
Salaries are often highlighted as a possible reason why more people don’t enter the profession, and industry bosses like to point to the premium figure featured in the EngineeringUK report as an argument against this. And, despite many opinions to the contrary, the median salary for an engineer is actually greater than that for a solicitor, chartered accountant or architect.
But median salary isn’t everything. The brightest, most ambitious young people – the ones the top engineering companies are really after – know they can earn top salaries, not just average ones.
So another report that came out this week – the High Fliers survey of the 100 most popular graduate employers – may well be more useful to top engineering firms if they start to see a gap in their own recruitment campaigns.
The average starting salary at these most sought-after firms was a record £30,000. For those which fell into the engineering and industrial category (the likes of BAE Systems, Jaguar Land Rover and Siemens), the figure was just £27,500, less than in every other sector except retail and the public sector.
And the divergence of top salaries was even greater. The most you can earn as a graduate at a top engineering firm is £31,000. In accounting, finance, law, media, retail and the public sector, the best candidates will land over £40,000.
Given their popularity, it’s likely the engineering firms in this survey have likely filled their graduate schemes without difficulty and haven’t felt the need to offer higher salaries over the last few years.
But as the economy continues to recover with the service sector steaming ahead of engineering and manufacturing, there’s a real danger the big firms will face their own skills shortage if they can’t keep up with the appeal of other top employers.
Of course, most young people will never start their careers on such high salaries. And money isn’t everything, especially to the kind of young people likely to be inspired by the intellectual challenge of engineering.
Yet the wider image of engineering as a leading profession to which all young people should aspire is damaged by statistics like these. Because career decisions take place so early, engineering must present itself as an industry that offers as many opportunities for success – including monetary success – as its rival professions.
Engineering doesn’t pay as well as others for the entire career cycle, and the gap only widens over time. There’s no point misleading graduates.
While the practise of calling tradesmen engineers persists, and there remains a limited amount of reserved work through structural or market requirements, this is unlikely to change.
And the median salary for Engineering grads has outgrown every sector bar one.
As I tell young Engineers- if money is your sole target, then most professions will disappoint. Engineering pays pretty well, but some more and many less. But above all, if that sort of money is all you’re bothered about, go away, and good luck, because Engineering needs Engineers not greedy “my generationers”. The lot of Engineering graduates has increased steadily until they are now extremely pampered.
Where do these stats come from?
Good luck to anyone who wants to live, have a house or start a family on Engineers wages.
I’ve lived the low pay for hours worked and the terrible YTS of the 90’s encouraging slave labour.
Median pay? where is average pay? or are the results sqewed as usual to help companies continue to pay low wages for those who do the work.
There is no economy without engineers, scientists. What will the managers manage, lawyers defend in court, media advertise, politicians squabble over, bankers invest into the product/technology which was never invented by an engineer, scientists. All above (except politicians) will be rendered jobless without scientific innovation.
Engineering, however you look at it, is a “Practical” skill whereby Engineers become more skilled as they gain more experience.
So why should Graduates expect a high salary?
From my perspective, I think the Graduate term is overrated, its pointless that someone can design a hole if they can’t even drill one.
Give me a good Apprentice, that’s done their time, learnt the skills then put them in a Design office.
Would you be a happy passenger in an aircraft designed by your apprentices without the engineer’s mathematical training?
Engineering; misunderstood, unrepresented, underpaid and unequal.
It begs the question, what are our prestigious institutions such as the IMechE, RAEng and IET actively doing to change this? Or are they quite happy taking in their membership and chartership fee’s, talking the talk when they should be walking the walk.
What degrees are counted in ‘Consulting’?
The reality is that the vast majority (but not all) freshly qualified engineering graduates are not very sought after because of a distinct lack of practical skills.
Some of them haven’t even had “real jobs” and have no experience of any work place environment outside of typical part-time/holiday jobs.
They expect to be earning more than a time-served skilled person just because they have been to university.
They may be able to give you chapter and verse about the theory behind something, but the total lack of hands-on, practical and real-world experience most have, puts them at a distinct disadvantage compared with a person with only a GCSE Grade D in maths who as actually learned the skills from a practical perspective / hands on apprenticeship and understood the theory by making things, rather than being taught it in a classroom.
Engineering pay is also a reflection on the fact that engineering, generally speaking isn’t a wealthy industry. Your £40k accountant may be charged out at £60/hour and their more qualified experienced senior may be charged out at £120-£200++
They have an office, PC’s and say, 10 years experience.
Your engineering company making aircraft wing ribs or performance automotive machined parts has £1-10m of plant and machinery (probably partly financed) substantial industrial premises, an array of QHSE requirements and certifications as well as an office, PC’s and say, 10 years experience.
Most of these companies struggle to get £50/hour for their man and expensive machine, let alone £100++++
If Engineering Manufacturing is under appreciated to this level that it can’t charge out its work at a reasonable level, what hope is there of them being able to pay graduates a higher rate of pay ?
Young people have those attitudes because throughout their youth they are bombarded with propaganda from trusted adults that having a university degree is the preeminent qualification for adult life. Any normally socialised young person is going to go along with this to a considerable extent because the alternative is grinding cynicism about the path in life they are travelling (often with next to no choice on their own part or awareness of any alternatives, let alone actual experience of alternatives).
It is a waste of time to blame the kids for our ludicrous credentialisation culture. It has been created by adults over several decades and the only way things can be changed is to change adult attitudes, especially in education, politics, and the media, but also in society as a whole.
You seem to misunderstand the issue most commenters have. The problem is not mainly that graduates are underpaid but that the engineering/manufacturing industries in the UK are simply not able to compete with other professions.
A competent and talented graduate would be a fool to choose engineering when they earn so little and – as clearly shown by your comment as well – the companies do not appreciate the incredibly hard work that goes into obtaining a good engineering degree.
The situation begs the question: Why would a talented graduate with a great mind, great marks and great future choose to work for an engineering/manufacturing company that looks down on him for not having completed an apprenticeship and hasn’t gotten himself dirty when he could just join an investment bank or a management consultancy and earn better, live better, be more respected and live in a nicer area?
And the other question is: If engineering/manufacturing companies want people with apprenticeships because you are so certain that hands-on skills are the only thing that matters, then why are we misleading our young talents and tricking them into doing engineering? Why do we perpetuate this myth of “not enough engineers”?
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
We have occasionally employed engineering graduates who cannot put their academic knowledge to good practical use.
We pay what the employee is worth to the company, so start at an affordable salary but then have increments after 3 and 6 months, which have, for the best graduates, been over 25% in total where the graduate shows they can perform as promised.
Many engineering companies specialise in a certain field, so it is not unreasonable for the graduate to have to tune their skills and prove their worth before getting the higher salary.
I think the salary at 2 years from graduation is more relevant.
I totally agree with a readers previous view that Engineering is basically practical skills within relative sectors, these attributes increasing as the individual gains more experience. I have seen “Graduates” being put in positions of trust, on high salaries when their basic skills are not strong enough to understand or guard against basic errors. A time served apprenticeship or on-the-job training serving a master thereby learning his trade cannot be beaten in my view. This system in parallel with maintaining a modern day culture leads to preserving skill sets, an important and necessary requirement to ensuring future successes.
Am an electrical engineer in a role short of engineers with 25 years exp. And up to date knowledge. My income is much lower than other profs is my observation.
Table 3.4 providing the analysis of graduate salaries in 2015 isn’t being properly read. The graduates in the oil and gas sector are predominantly engineering graduates and are among the highest paid earners in the table!
I’m from outside UK, here by engineer you mean a technical university graduate. I worked for 2 years in a factory after graduation, then in a technical institute. OK, an engineering graduate doesn’t come with a practical experience, but this will soon come for those who are “gifted” for engineering. In my opinion, nothing can replace a good theoretical background. If it’s not done in university, hard to get it afterwards…
If you really want to be an engineer you’ll be one regardless of salary, and only if you really want to be an engineer will you be a good one.
If you are a good one then you may or may not receive a good salary but you’ll be happy in your work and that will last you a lifetime.
No matter what you may think a high salary cannot guarantee that.
People who have the necessary attributes for engineering (or any other profession) are more likely to develop a practical desire to pursue that profession if it is valued in the society in which they live. Rightly or wrongly relative salary levels are one of the most important ways that a society signals to its members which professions it values. Social pressures from family, friends, educators, the media etc. strongly incentivise people to enter the professions which their society values. For this reason only a society that pays engineers (or teachers or doctors etc.) good salaries will make full use of the innate talent for engineering (or teaching, medicine etc.) present in the population.
The graduate may well lack experience but this is also the case for all the other sectors. This is a terrible statistic that will put people off engineering. The graduate salary was always used to disguise the industry as being well paid as it used to be one of the highest. Now it is second from bottom. There is no hiding that the industry has a real salary problem.
As an engineer (40s) with a good degree from a good university working for a very profitable, successful large engineering uk plc I can say all my contemporaries that are solicitors, chartered accountants, architects, work in IT earn significantly more than I do.
My Mrs (6 years qualified accountant – she retrained), earns about 50% more, and says she is underpaid within the industry.
Look at the advertised salaries in the back of the Engineer.
HTH
If you ask your boss and his or her boss why they are paid more than you, they say it’s because of the extra responsibility. I’m a Design Engineer. I’ve got and honours degree, a masters, and 25 years of experience in product design. I design the products that the company sells which bring in the revenue to pay the inflated salaries of those ‘superiors’. I can’t think of a more responsible position!
Does my salary reflect my level of qualifications and experience? Not by a long way. I look round for alternative employers and all I see is salaries in a range with a glass ceiling, way below those of a similarly qualified and experiences accountant, doctor, banker, etc.
It’s fairly obvious that salary levels represent what the country as a whole sees as important. This is why accountants, bankers, anybody in the finance sector is paid more than engineers. We no longer have a stable manufacturing industry – we’ve nothing to sell. All the big companies are foreign-owned. So we rely on the finance industry to keep the country afloat. We’re one global financial crisis away from bankruptcy.
As a time-served Ex-Apprentice in Electronics engineering, with only a Higher National to my name, I don’t need a salary survey to tell me I’m underpaid.
Staggeringly, the perception of general society that a technician/repairman who fixes youer kettle is an Engineer and by assiciation has the same status as a airctaft wing designer (say) will always hold engineering salaries back. Particularly the year-on-year increases which have all but disappeared in the last couple of decades, guaranteeing poverty in old age.
My son is in the digree treadmill at the moment, and I would certainly discourageallow him following ANY engineering path, even if he wanted to (luckily, he doesn’t).
If you have an interest in enything even vaguely engineering-y, go work for a Bank, or in Law, or just about any occupation that will keep you out of termninal finantial meltdown. If you still want to get your hands dirty, but an old Alfa-Romeo, and try to keep it on the road…..that should keep you busy.
Here we go again.
So a graduate starts on £27500 at let say JLR, over 2 years receives several pay increases totaling 25% and puts them on £34375.
JLR are advertising for experienced engineers and are offering anyting between £30000 to £40000 with some topping out at £45000, not including management roles.
Why would anyone want to get in to engineering with pay like that?
If i stuck with my old permanent job and received the minimum company pay increase since 2007 I’d now be on £53500 as a senior design engineer. I’ve asked to go permanent as my old place and they can offer a max of £48000. I’ll stick to contracting for now but accountancy is looking like a future job, i’m 44 so never too late to change career.
In India American oil and gas engineering companies are paying £40k to senior engineers at one tenth the living cost resulting in 33% salary savings.
My friend out of uni, 10 years since, obtained his chartership in accountancy after about a year and a half. He worked like a dog but it instantly gave him £40k/annum.
I’m 8 years into my career, have an MSc, got my charter and I’ve nearly reached the same income – nearly.
Even if I’d earned my charter as quickly I’d never have obtained such an income. I believe my experience is pretty common.
My question then is, how are these figures arrived at? They simply don’t seem representative of experience.
Engineering is relatively underpaid in the UK compared to everywhere else in the world for many reasons already outlined. I believe much of this is because we have no legal status for the word ‘engineer’.
We also live in a country where the ‘rules’ allow you to make a lot more money from moving the same amount of money from one place to another, compared to the engineering sector actually generating wealth.
One key factor The Engineer should research to compliment these statistics is the “cost of living” or resulting disposable income due to where these wages are earned. You can guarantee most of the Law, Banking, and Investment banking wage earners are in London, where the cost of living is substantially more, while most of the engineering roles will be the Midlands. The follow on query is as a 21 year old graduate would you prefer to live in London or Stafford?
There is a huge amount of engineering in the South East. Within London alone there are roles in rail, consulting, aircraft, civil and oil&gas. In the South East you can add to that automotive and space. I think if these were stripped out then the average salary would fall dramatically.
Blah, blah, blah .. engineering shortage.. blah, blah ..low pay in engineering.. blah, blah.. technicians/fitters are not ‘engineers’ blah, blah… Nobody’s listening !
If you like it and the money’s enough then stay. If you
don’t get out. Honestly no-one out there cares.
Oh dear nothing much has improved in the last thirty years.
James S – Many thanks for the insight. But, you miss the point, which is not moaning engineers, but that there is an acknowledged shortage of engineering talent because engineers (and prospective engineers) are already taking your advice and are voting with their feet.
Now, why do you think that might be?
Regarding the “if you don’t like that you’re paid less than comparable roles in other sectors then leave engineering” argument:
1 Do you think that enjoying your job excuses being taken advantage of?
2 Do you also tell nurses and teachers this?
Just to throw a not properly thought through idea into the pot.
Could it be the fact that in an era of low interest rates many engineering/manufacturing firms which are basically clapped out (bad products, low investment in productive machinery etc) have not gone to the wall as they may have in previous recessions. They do keep employing engineers but they cannot/will not pay good salaries and this may drag the overall salaries for the sector down. Not the whole story – but worth a thought or investigation?
SMEs are lauded in this country – but whilst many are innovative, ambitious and may indeed produce new industries (Reaction Engines, Hybrid Air vehicles) many are just small inefficient widget producers often run as family firms who have no intention of being ambitious enough to grow.
Very sadly true. Firms are taking unfair advantage over graduates as they have very little options. I have an MSC in Mechanical Engineering, started as a graduate 2 years ago designing machinery and still getting paid £20k!
Of my graduating class in 2002, the engineering students at the top of the class mostly are unemployed/underemployed. While the ones at the bottom, who would take the low salaries, actually are working. Its rather bizarre that HR has a preference for lower-end talent, rather than higher-end talent. Engineering salaries are pathetically low to the point that even tradespeople (electricians, plumbers, etc.) significantly out-earn engineers in the workforce.
Also, engineers are too infantilizing in their whole approach to the situation. Different engineers gain knowledge and skill in different ways. But year after year, the various engineering organizations put out salary surveys and materials that claim that entry-level engineers should all be treated to a low salary. Some countries even call newly graduated engineers, “Engineering Internship Training” or “Engineers-in-Training”, which seeks to de-professionalize the younger members of the profession.
Here in the US, engineers are paid less than finance and healthcare people.The well paid engineering jobs are also located in major cities where cost of living is very high.
Here in the US, engineers are paid less than
finance and healthcare people. The well paid
engineering jobs are also located in major cities
where cost of living is very high.
Oh, please do tell what the average pay for an engineer in the US is?
If we use the exchange rate at the moment (1.3 dollars to the pound), are you saying that engineers in the USA are on $26000?
Erm……I thought not, you’d be hard pushed to find someone on that low pay, even a graduate.
Don’t comment withouts facts, just look at Indeed and insert Engineer as the search term.
Yes, very interesting phenomena here in the UK.
Every second person is an engineer even the guy who comes and changes the tile on your roof. It is almost a joke and because of that, it seems that engineering as a whole takes a huge knock.
Nobody cares and salaries reflect that. Coming from South Africa your living standards are sky high and salaries are relatively good compared to the other sectors. One can expect to earn a decent living buy a house and drive a fancy car with 3 years experience.
In the UK, good luck. The salaries that they offer are so low you can be lucky to save for a deposit and take a holiday in the year. It is such a shame really.
Engineer pay in the UK is a result of office/admin culture, people behind desks think they are more important than “dirty” engineers and don’t think that engineers deserve decent pay, those same people run the HR departments.
I worked in an open plan office for 6 years, I worked with overpaid idiots, people who barely knew how to turn on a PC, BUT something I did notice is how the office/admin staff were treated really well, new PCs, new stationary, new office chairs, drink/eat when they want, take long breaks, take days off at short notice, no problem. They didn’t think the technical staff should be paid as much as them and that is how the management kept it.
In addition, the technical and engineering staff were basically used as general dogsbodies, doing demeaning work like moving furniture and building said chairs for office staff.
Some people think that when they get to work in an office, they have somehow “made it”, the way they behave, they way they speak down to technical staff, the way they get treated 10x better by management, it makes you want to wring their necks.
As for the “engineer” title, I don’t believe that qualifications make an engineer (just look at Colin Furze on Youtube), engineering is in the blood, i’ve worked with degree qualified engineers and at least 50% them were absolutely clueless, but the guys who do engineering as a hobby, degree or not, they’re always amazing people to work with.
Companies prefer engineers that are on visas because they can’t change jobs easily.
Also they can pay visa employees less, especially if they want to escape from theocracies, dictatorships or corrupt countries.
Also, they can be fobbed off with poor pay rises and hollow promises of gaining residency since they can’t move jobs.
In addition companies don’t have to train them, so saving them money.
Another bonus is that they can get rid of them easily, since the VISA needs constant renewal and they can simply not renew it.
Also one engineer on a visa will help to recruit all of his/her friends also on VISAS from the same country, so more cheap labour,
Then the group of friends can converse in their mother tongue, so projects will be discussed in Arabic, Hindi ect…
British people will be excluded from project discussions or not be hired since they don’t speak the “working language” of the team.
Then you leave the UK or find a different career.
Germany: http://www.ingenieurkarriere.de/gehaltstest/einstiegsgehaelter-fuer-ingenieure
That’s gross salary, their tax is higher, 10% goes to health insurance, 8% to pension, 5% to care insurance and 5% to unemployment insurance. Real data might be 10.1% 4.8%, etc. but you get the idea.
with £1 = EUR 1.15 Germany is much more attractive for European engineers.
In Britain there is gay marriage which isn’t possible in Germany yet, but with DUP getting into power this advantage of Britain might change.
I’m 55 on 30k without pay rise in the last 15 years. Perhaps I should take singing lessons.
In response to the “quoted” below, I do wonder if such an insight is in itself a reflection of the industry. When I graduated, 20 years ago, the ICE & INSTRUCT were among that list as being at the forefront of representation. I don’t perceive this as being an “aptitude” issue, I see it more as an industry where we, the Engineers, are unable to represent ourselves, to gain public appreciation. It’s simply not something we are taught to do.
Engineering salaries are poor in the UK, and I wouldn’t recommend to anyone going into engineering unless they were really self motivated and driven to. The UK doesn’t need more engineers it needs more dog’s bodies to do the menial tasks whilst the management graduate takes all the credit and higher salary
I studied a masters degree in electrical engineering and within a couple of years decided it’s time for a career change. Most engineering jobs are reserved for people who undervalue their worth and want to spend all week sitting in an office getting stressed out over their responsibilities and complex workload, all for less pay than most other sectors which require less intelligence to get into and less effort to maintain
The reality we live in today is that civil engineers work in the least productive industry which in order to increase the quality of living for people it requires more regulations from the government which in turn decrease the productivity even more. Although engineering tasks are extremely complex and require a lot of stress, pressure and skills they are also becoming less and less valuable due to automation of thinking. And since humans whont be able to compete in thinking with the machines you can almost see the industry will get even worse. Plain and simple, I can’t pay an engineer £100.000 if they don’t produce at least double or even more. On top of that, complex thinking and specialisation comes with large overtime because the clients will not need your brain for these tasks a lot. Esentially engineers are paid today to think and the odds are well against them.