Negotiating salary...

[Temp_Username]

I'm looking for any advice (positiive or negative) on how negotiating a permanent position. Here's a little background without going into much information...

• Top Level Undergraduate Engineering Placement
• Graduated University
• Went straight into (Graduate) Engineering Design role
• After working 12M left job to gain Masters Degree (1 Year Course)
• Stay in contact, discuss possibility of doing part time work, unfortunately doesn't work out.
• Graduate University again - with Masters Degree
• Now returned to same position under temporary contract

This is where I am now. During the 12M that I left one of the Senior Engineers in the (small) department moved to another department in the same organisation, another Engineer (who has been there a fair few years) is also moving. The department is now mainly younger Engineers (with 5+ years of experience) and I am relitively new but still have some experience.

At least one permanent position is going to be advertised in the coming months. I will likely go for the position but I wanted to get some advice on how (if at all) I can use my situation to negotiate a salary. I expect that whatever salary I get will remain constant for some time..

I'm in an area where there are plenty of Engineers looking for work and also many different companies in similar line of work. Advertised salary appears to be quite stagnant and is on the lower side for Europe. Am I now more valuable to the company or do I run the risk of losing the job to someone else willing to do it for less ££££?