exactly 35K is diabolical, that was good pay 25 years ago for a office worker, not a senior engineer! The Engineering institutions (IMECHE, IET etc) haven’t done enough to maintain high standards. Petroleum Engineering, for example, is generally the best paid with Civil and Mechanical Engineers roughly equatable but paid 1.7 times less then Petroleum Engineers on average in the U.S. In my experience, professional project managers are a lot like professional politicians: limited qualifications for their role and a belief that because of their title they know everything. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. It seems design has become a commodity. Now living in continental Europe and in all honesty it is a much better place for engineers both in terms of pay and recognition. Maybe you find it interesting: 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. Structural engineers are the civil engineers who create the designs for the, well, structures that underlie larger projects found in other types of engineering. I suspect there aren’t many project managers that actually create proejct plans, analyse how long each task takes, number of people cost etc. Companies, like big banks, who need tax money to survive should go bankrupt. As business slices and dices skills and careers (talk to Drs & Lawyers) this will change. Structural engineers often work alongside civil engineers and architects as part of a construction team CEng or the equivalent may well be a license to practice in other countries, but it isn’t in the UK. I have been working as a Structural Engineer for 4 years designing bridges for a small consulting design firm and I make $110,000… and that doesn’t even include the really good benefits I get. Get an ad-free experience with special benefits, and directly support Reddit. 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. Doctors , lawyers, solictors , stockbrokers ,politicians, bankers are not reststrained in this way. Only in the UK does the Engineer enjoy such extra low status. You do it as cheaply as possible with no care for quality. This is slightly lower than the $95,380 received by electrical and electronics engineers and the $89,930 paid to materials engineers. If you are doing shifts the average pay is £45-50K. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic, and environmental concerns, but they may also consider aesthetic and social factors. I try to maintain a degree of scepticism whenever I’m told engineering graduates are high earners. Any of the big employers would be better than this, or you could re-train (MSc or whatever) and get into a new organisation. Bridge/Structural 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago (1 child). There is very little market value in engineering. Perhaps you should do some research before posting such comments? The project managers just chase this. I guess it’s all down to supply & demand. Lets face it. Did Dr Mengele deserve status? Those with plants in your cube/office— especially those without windows— what are you growing? The second problem with being an engineer is it rarely lends itself to setting up your own business. Now the reality is that GPs shouldn’t get paid £104,000 a year. The progression route usually starts at graduate around £18k – £23k, then to assistant engineer at around £25k-£28k. The real question is not structural vs other engineering disciplines. Also in my experience, engineers are really bad at taking advantage of "add services". After all you don’t get everyone calling themselves a doctor of this or that. 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. Structural engineers are trained professionals who are responsible for making sure that the structures we use in our daily lives, like bridges and tall buildings, are safe, stable and don’t collapse under applied loads. Now we are in an intriguing possition where we find optical clensing engineers, which are called window cleaners in other countries. The same goes for laser treatment for eyes. If you are clever enough to do engineering then I advise you to consider a profession that gives you better rewards and public esteem. Built on the shoulders of giants, how does all this financial wizardry exist without engineering…………erm it doesn’t. Take home pay is about £1950 per month, which is about double minimum wage. https://thecivildiscourse.com/blog/. I noticed that entry level civil engineer salary are pretty low and also for civil engineers that have experience. If Qualified, competent Engineers are receiving better remuneration then it is partly because they add value but also because, today, they are required by regulation. Whereas some of the smaller or sub-contract companies may pay around £50k. [–]Enlight1OmentS.E. Anyway, they love engineers in the city, they throw money at us and London is a nice place to be when you’ve got cash, DL Then the recesion hit and I found another job with the same pay. If your company is up-to-date you probably have a quality manual and training material where all the terms you need are explained. Perhaps one of the more important reasons for an engineering/science/nedical degree is that its a degree that actually has some value. In West Midlands too so no London weighting. All that’s probably happened is that more part qualified assistant technicians have been hired as engineers at 20,000 pounds per annum. Hi guys, im working on a presentation about base isolation systems and proof buildings against earthquakes and im trying to finds some information about different types of base isolation systems and which one is the best as I will compare them so please help me . Don’t be a mug! The market sets these pay scales and without really very extreme changes in our economic system, they will remain so. Very good Engineers, in general, are contractors and can get around London approx. Probably something mechanical. Your Master's might get you a little more. 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. also in respect I have worked with people off the tools and also found them to be equally useless due to the disregard to the engineering process. People get out of engineering. They're always thinking not to piss off the client so they get the next job, but that never seems to hurt the contractor much when he pulls all his games. Grumpy Old Engineer – do you really think that a prject manager in engineering is a more dempnding job than an engineer? It seems that STEM degrees, although being the most sought after by employers, usually pay less, starting off than your average call centre. I work in transportation (bridges, O/H sign structures, etc.) If you took out the people that hadn’t progressed to be managers then I’m afraid the salary is very poor and typically only a few thousand more than a graduate gets. We are moving to a 2 class society. [–]alpine_engineerStructural 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (0 children), That's fair, but for many of us it is a cushy office job, [–]mike_311Structural PE - Bridges 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children). That is egregious! A quant gets paid £72,000 on average. As for status – you should get status because you are an outstanding person, not because of the job title. Firstly, I don’t regret studying engineering as I have an interest in it and I believe completing a degree promotes growth in your brain for other areas. I graduated in 2008 with a 1st Class MEng (Mechanical). Personally I find the effort to financial reward ratio in an engineering career is poor compared to certain other fields. I’m sure there are some proper project managers who really do have a more stressful job but not where I work. In reply to the question from Kamal, as a retired chartered chemical engineer with 30 plus years of experience, engineering can be a worthwhile, interesting, financially very rewarding career but it is not as easy to achieve as say for a medical career. A correction Phil H. GPs do not generally hold doctorates, the doctor title they have is a courtesy title. You income will be taxed at up to 40% but you will be earning too much to qualify for in-work benefits. My point about banking was that in many people’s view ‘professional engineering’ work offers a lot more to society than ‘financial engineering’, and if it does pay better, it comes at higher risk. Most though will answer emails and such in the evening so I would give them credit for 45 hours on average. So on average an engineer has a 6 year head start. 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. Usually this happens either because your degree wasn’t very good or because you made bad career decisions early on which resulted in you ending up in a dead-end. The old hands: More experienced software engineers will start to see a higher hourly earnings rate, ranging from just under R150 on the lower end, to R780 on the high end. Why do civil engineers get paid so little for the skills they posses? 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. The range for our most popular Structural Engineer positions (listed below) typically falls between $43,034 and $120,432. 50k for a bigger firm... probably less for a smaller firm. I presume it may be different in America. The other engineering disciplines experience this to a much lesser extent, if at all. That may seem like a lot more but don’t forget the difference gets taxed at 40% and you’ve probably got either a £9,000 a year season ticket to pay for or an expensive house in the home counties that needs financing. I then lost my job in the middle of the recesion and became self employed with a uni friend. Why do I deserve status? Back in the 1950s few electrical engineers knew much about software and in the transition to digital, the old school of the time knew loads about valves but nothing about transistors. Any project manager I’ve met to date can be described by: Starting salaries for engineers are among the highest for any college degree. 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. However that is one roadblock for why more people do not become agents. ££) fields, or become entrepreneurial. The other engineering disciplines experience this to a much lesser extent, if at all. So why should Graduates expect a high salary? My daily job is analyzing information, making high-level decisions and sending and receiving at least 50 emails a day. Of course, there are expections to this. Off the top of my head and this list is not exhaustive, these are some of them: Geometric tollerancing, surface finishing, material selection and these are the best ones…..He didnt know what box section was or what a tapped hole was!! 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