Features editor
Questions about engineer’s salaries, nationwide distribution, job satisfaction and career progression are answered in our inaugural Salary Survey, to be published in our next issue and in greater detail online at the end of this month.
If there’s one thing engineers like — at least judging from the feedback we receive via this website — it’s complaining about their salaries. Of course, you could probably say the same about any industrial sector; but in our upcoming issue, which will reach readers next week, we set the facts straight with the inaugural Engineer Salary Survey.
You may remember that we invited responses to our survey a couple of months ago, and readers replied in strength. With over 4000 respondents answering questions on a variety of work-related topics, we think our survey is the largest of its kind in the UK. It gives us much-needed hard information about where engineers in various engineering and manufacturing sectors are employed, how old they are, how happy they are in their work, the gender divide in the sectors and — of course — how much they are paid.
One surprising finding is that regardless of their job satisfaction — and only 35 per cent think their salaries suitably reflect their workload —over 80 per cent of engineers in each sector expect to be in their current job for the next five years. By age, the largest percentage of engineers are in the 50-54 band, while only 12 per cent are under 30: a confirmation of the looming skills gap in the next ten years as the older cohort retires. Gender disparity is also marked: just 5.5 per cent of respondents were women, and their average salary was almost £8000 per year lower than the male average. Another marked disparity is between the pay-rates at in the various sectors: average annual pay for oil and gas engineers, who are at the top of the pay scale, is over £13000 higher than for the food and drink sector, at the bottom. This disparity is even harsher as careers develop: at director level or above, an engineer in the defense sector earns over £28000 more than in the food and drink sector.
We will be publishing a longer version of the survey analysis, including an interactive tool allowing engineers to benchmark their salaries, on our website on 29th June.
One of the survey findings — that civil engineering has a higher proportion of women than any other sector — is discussed in more detail in our Women in Engineering feature.
Elsewhere in the June issue, our features take an in-depth look at aerospace. Our cover feature this issue gives us a rare insight into the high-tech world of Rolls-Royce, with a detailed look at one of the most advanced features of modern aircraft, the turbine blades that convert the energy in jet fuel into movement. These blades are single crystals of a nickel ‘superalloy’, and their manufacture by casting is probably the most advanced feat of metalwork achieved anywhere in the world; especially at Rolls-Royce’s new blade-casting facility in Rotherham where the process is automated to a larger extent than ever before.
Another feature answers a question that’s often put to us. Whenever we’ve mentioned airport expansion, we’ve always received a comment asking who seaplanes are not revived, as they would allow aircraft to be operated without the difficulties of building new runways. We take a look at what a new generation of seaplanes might look like; and if our commenters were expecting something like the old Short Sunderlands or even the huge Saunders-Roe Princess, which never went into full production, they might be in for a surprise at the 2000-seat, A380-dwarfing Leviathan that aerospace engineers are proposing.
We also ask industry experts how technology is shaping civil aviation, and investigate machining technologies for composites, increasingly important in aerospace. Finally, our interview asks one of the senior engineers of Bosch, a company at the forefront of ‘Industry 4.0’, the machine-connectivity revolution, how this new development can help manufacturers.
I hope there will be more to the salary break down rather than just sector and peak salary. A break down into age groups, qualifications, CEng, location etc. would help greatly. I think there will be very big variations between these.
Don’t forget that the results may be skewed on the high side as people respond with higher figures so that when the results come out they can go to their bosses with the data and say “I’m underpaid!”
@Dr Bob
I agree, this does happen without verification of the salary. I think it is also why it is important to break down the figures as the Engineering council do with their surveys. They have the headline figure for CEng engineers, but to get that you need to have a post graduate degree such as an MSc, PhD/EngD (not MEng), work in London or Southeast, work in certain sectors and (obviously) have at least x years experience. There are a great range of factors that contribute.
I agree with ‘Engineer’ ‘s response above, will be interesting to see a breakdown more for curiosity than anything else! The bigger point here is that so many people are dissatisfied with their salary, the absolute numbers are pretty irrelevant.
I think the industry needs to take a serious look at these findings. Take BAE systems for example, not saying they are a company to copy but they are seen as a Great British engineering company. They pay their finance grad schemers 2k more than their engineers, and they’re an engineering company! Something has to be wrong with this!
Having just read the survey in the latest edition I was surprised to find the engineers in academia get an average of £45,247 p/a. Well not sure how those figures arose, but I can tell you its a long way from the truth. Sounds like we are due for a raise in salary!!
Anon – Of course BAE pay their Finance folk more than engineers, who do you think runs the company?. The same applies to the majority of British firms. Only when the bean-counters are herded back into their hutch and real people are promoted to run things can the engineering profession be rewarded commensurate with their value-add contributions.
Thank you for publishing this research. I’ve just read through it. With regards to aerospace paying more in the South East and London rather than South West this is due to the space industry paying more than the aircraft industry. The major aircraft companies are based around Bristol, although many are based around South East too, but the majority of the space industry is around London and South East.
For automotive there is motorsport valley which extends from Silverstone (just touching the midlands) and down as far as Woking. There are very big automotive companies in the south east particularly in the higher value and high innovation end of the sector.
You also have to take Contractors into account; quite often earning a considerably higher hourly rate than a permanent member of staff due to the nature of the work and the need to offset the NI contributions and umbrella company fees that often go alongside it. Though many are starting to work under their own Ltd companies to prevent umbrella corps from taking their substantial cut!