Where do your earnings rank you?

[snuffy]

Engineering in the UK pays ste money. You are expected to be well qualified, know what you are doing and yet the pay is shocking.

I've been in engineering (Control Systems Software) for 25 year now and the only way to earn anything half decent is to work contract, which I have now done for that last 14 years.

[vonuber]

I have to say that in Civil Engineering at least it is changing. Slowly, but it is improving.
It is now no longer better to go be a manager at Tesco's, for example.

[GroundEffect]

I earn well enough to be honest as a mech eng. Far better than my biologist brother.

[Alpinestars]

XJ40 said:

Very interesting figures, not too many surprises I guess. I'm at 38th, electronics engineer, seems about right as an average.

Pleased to see we've "beaten" solicitors and accountants, that's a good effort, nice scalps to have.. these avaiation guys and train drivers are doing well in the scheme of things.

No professional athletes/sports people listed it seems, I'd imagine professional footballers would give CEO's and brokers a run for their money..

Always good to beat accountants and solicitors but the range of pay is huge. Eg, a bookkeeper who may be an accountant might be paid 20k and then you get the heads of large accounting firms who are paid £3 to £4m.

The average magic circle law firm partner earning are over £1m.

[anonymous-user]

snuffy said:

Engineering in the UK pays ste money.

Completely ste. I only know one person who is an engineer and they moved to California. This wouldn't be all that surprising except I have a masters degree in it!

[snuffy]

fblm said:

snuffy said:

Engineering in the UK pays ste money.

Completely ste. I only know one person who is an engineer and they moved to California. This wouldn't be all that surprising except I have a masters degree in it!

Oh, I see now. I read that as "complete ste" (as in you disagree) but "completely ste" means you agree.

[eharding]

Breadvan72 said:

I once did a gig for a quant who earned uber hyper giga megabucks by directing trading using super esoteric modelling. He had about 97 Maths Doctorates from Harvard, MIT, Caltech and everywhere else besides. He still had food in his beard, however

That's the point. You were struggling with the fact he still had food from his last meal in his beard. He, on the other hand, was actually managing to arbitrage the food from his meal after next, hedged in his beard, against what he'd already shaved off that morning, and somehow pocketing the national debt of Liberia in the process.

[anonymous-user]

snuffy said:

Engineering in the UK pays ste money. You are expected to be well qualified, know what you are doing and yet the pay is shocking.

I've been in engineering (Control Systems Software) for 25 year now and the only way to earn anything half decent is to work contract, which I have now done for that last 14 years.

Or lucky timing.
E.g. resign just after someone quits to go contracting. Get an obscene pay rise to stay to steady the ship!

[snuffy]

Jimboka said:

Or lucky timing.
E.g. resign just after someone quits to go contracting. Get an obscene pay rise to stay to steady the ship!

Indeed, that's either pressing home your advantage of chancing your arm, depending on which way you look at it. Either way, as you say, you need to take advantage of the situation.

[anonymous-user]

snuffy said:

Oh, I see now. I read that as "complete ste" (as in you disagree) but "completely ste" means you agree.

Haha sorry wasn't very clear; yes I was agreeing with you. My only proper engineering job was for Chrysler in Detroit. The viper GTS had just come out and we were fighting over the manufacturer pool cars when the head of powertrain engineering said to me if I wanted one that bad change careers because he couldn't afford one. So I did.

[anonymous-user]

Accounting Technicians in 39th spot are on more than Chartered Accountants in 59th! There is something fundamentally wrong with this survey.

[thainy77]

fblm said:

snuffy said:

Engineering in the UK pays ste money.

Completely ste. I only know one person who is an engineer and they moved to California. This wouldn't be all that surprising except I have a masters degree in it!

Peroleum engineering here, probably one of the more higher paid engineering professions, well until recently . But as said above, move or work abroad and the money can be well North of the number one spot on that list.

[GetCarter]

Surprised to see Adele in 191st spot.

Shows what tripe this chart is.

[Hackney]

fido said:

Legal professionals - £76,434. Think someone cut and paste without checking from a spreadsheet.

Also what is the difference between 'Financial managers and directors' and 'Financial institution managers and directors'?

One is a finance manager or director at a [widget making] company,
the other is a manager or director at a financial institution, perhaps

[Hackney]

P5BNij said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

P5BNij said:

We're paid for what we know, not just what we do...!

That would be to know this handle is go and this handle is stop?

Bugger, I've been rumbled...

If I drew you a map of my 'route card' you'd probably think a large drunken spider had crawled across the page leaving a trail of ink in its wake in all directions... the varied route knowledge we have to learn and retain adds up to 'quite a lot', throw in the rules and traction and it's 'quite a lot more'...! Imagine(for instance) commuting to work on the entire length of the M1, M6, M40 and M25 combined, having to know intimately every bit of signage, every bridge, every junction, every pothole, every gradient and a whole lot more besides, then having to sign a legal document that you are competent to drive over those routes in all conditions day or night, and be regularly tested on that knowledge - there's far more to it than twiddling knobs and pulling levers. Granted, there's a lot of sitting about (damn those pesky signallers), tea drinking and hanging around mess rooms due to diagraming and pathing issues, but there is still some skill involved in how we actually do the job.

As a disclaimer I should add that there are certainly many professions who earn less than I do who should be much better rewarded for their efforts... I could never see myself as a copper, a nurse or (God forbid) a high fallutin' office type

Yes, but this is PH and if the industry has a union the consensus amongst the powerfully built director types seems to be that a trained monkey can do it.

[turbobloke]

Hackney said:

Yes, but this is PH and if the industry has a union the consensus amongst the powerfully built director types seems to be that a trained monkey can do it.

Just don't pay it too much, if you don't pay peanuts you get people.

[P5BNij]

Hackney said:

P5BNij said:

PurpleMoonlight said:

P5BNij said:

We're paid for what we know, not just what we do...!

That would be to know this handle is go and this handle is stop?

Bugger, I've been rumbled...

If I drew you a map of my 'route card' you'd probably think a large drunken spider had crawled across the page leaving a trail of ink in its wake in all directions... the varied route knowledge we have to learn and retain adds up to 'quite a lot', throw in the rules and traction and it's 'quite a lot more'...! Imagine(for instance) commuting to work on the entire length of the M1, M6, M40 and M25 combined, having to know intimately every bit of signage, every bridge, every junction, every pothole, every gradient and a whole lot more besides, then having to sign a legal document that you are competent to drive over those routes in all conditions day or night, and be regularly tested on that knowledge - there's far more to it than twiddling knobs and pulling levers. Granted, there's a lot of sitting about (damn those pesky signallers), tea drinking and hanging around mess rooms due to diagraming and pathing issues, but there is still some skill involved in how we actually do the job.

As a disclaimer I should add that there are certainly many professions who earn less than I do who should be much better rewarded for their efforts... I could never see myself as a copper, a nurse or (God forbid) a high fallutin' office type

Yes, but this is PH and if the industry has a union the consensus amongst the powerfully built director types seems to be that a trained monkey can do it.

It was ever thus Hackney, mention train driver or ASLEF in the same breath and most folk automatically think 'lefty, bolshi, workshy, strike happy idle b*sta*rds' and won't hear anything said to the contrary. I'm used to it now (I may be bolshi from time to time but I'm none of those other things). The union exists because way back when my Great Grandfather and two of his brothers were engine cleaners at Westbourne Park Shed, the top brass did all they could to forever put their 'type' well and truly in their place. It was and still is about the working conditions, not just our pay, despite what many would otherwise think. Our remuneration is as much to do with the responsibility of the job as anything else, and all the crap we have to deal with, not everyday of course but most of us in the grade have had to deal with nasty incidents while up front. I've had one fatality so far (and dozens of near misses), my brother has been involved in five and a retired mate had four in the space of just over a year. The travelling public only ever see a bored looking bloke behind the glass staring off into the distance, or groups of orange clad geezers stood seemingly idle by the lineside as their train passes by.

Edited by P5BNij on Tuesday 1st December 12:10

[XJ40]

fblm said:

snuffy said:

Engineering in the UK pays ste money.

Completely ste. I only know one person who is an engineer and they moved to California. This wouldn't be all that surprising except I have a masters degree in it!

Well, it's all relative.. I'd say "ste" is exagerating somewhat. If your any good and then pay is okay and comparable to other professional careers as seen in this chart. You should be able to make a reasonable living out of it - buy a family house, have a decent car, etc. Depends what you expectations are, and maybe where you are in the country? There's high demand for some engineering skills..

[anonymous-user]

V8 Fettler said:

Derek Chevalier said:

vonuber said:

I'm not sure I believe those civil engineering statistics. According to that I am well over the top bracket, and I know plenty who earn more (and jobs going for a lot more).
Although it doesn't say what level of qualification it is (I.e chartered, incorporated etc).

Not sure why you don't believe it - Engineering pay in the country is, on average, rubbish considering the calibre of people that work in it. Every single one of my Engineering coursemates left to go into IT, banking, sales or accountancy.

Would interesting to read a similar report on earnings within Germany.

We have quite a few graduates who have come from IT / Economics / Business to work within Engineering.

So much better than the UK in terms of salary, interestingly the contractors get paid less than perm here.

[anonymous-user]

XJ40 said:

Well, it's all relative.. I'd say "ste" is exagerating somewhat.

OK well to qualify it it's ste compared to professions requiring similar levels of numeracy, problem solving and qualifications such as accounting, law or finance. My career was in finance and my group would take MEng's over MBA's every time...