Engineering manager salary

[VWW]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 23 June 2025 at 08:10

[shirt]

VWW said:

It would involve increasing my team from 6 engineers to 4 Team Leads and 25 engineers.

your accountability/responsibility increases but your direct reports reduces. your workload should not increase per se.

i assume you reported to the previous eng mgr? how often did he need to go around you to your team? manage the direct reports properly and you won't need to, so don't think of the workload being proportional to the number of people beneath you.

instead look at difference in scale in quantifiable responsibilities. e.g. what does a 4x increase in the cost [and likelihood] of an engineering cock-up look like?

VWW said:

and honestly don t know if I d do the job for around £74k. On the other hand, it would increase my bonus amount from 8% to 12% of base. This is a role for a broadcaster in London.

firstly, don't ever negotiate or plan based on a bonus figure so disregard that.

you got nearly 4k a year in pay rises as an engineer, is there any reason to expect that will stagnate in the mgr role?

make the salary discussion measurable. quantify it. if they disagree with your assessment of worth then ask how they plan to help you develop and close the gap.

HR fairness is company dependent, some don't care what you are paid, others really do. but generally they will want to argue down and have more experience in negotiating salary than you do. but also bear in mind that your new role might entail working with them to set your department's pay rises, so an ability to negotiate strongly and fairly could be seen as a money saver overall.

[parabolica]

If the limit is 20% then ask for 20% and negotiate from there. If they are keen for you to go for the role they can’t be surprised when you want the appropriate uplift for it.