Engineering Career Advice - 7 years in..

[superhans88]

Hi, hoping there might be some on here who are able to offer an opinion..

I’m a mechanical engineer in the shipbuilding industry with 6.5 years of graduate level experience and I’m looking for a bit of advice on my present situation so apologies for the long post. I’ve moved around a bit so I’ll briefly summarise my experience to give some background:

- 2 year graduate programme with Babcock, Devonport Dockyard. Included a 6 month production management placement seconded to Rosyth on Aircraft Carrier Programme.
- HR put blocker on taking a permanent role in Rosyth so took a 12 month temp staff contract as a Production Controller instead.
- Joined BAE Systems as a Shock engineer on submarine project. £3k pay cut but needed full time employment after leaving Babcock. Stayed in this role just over 2 years and did a mixture of analysis and project work.
- Internal move about 1 year ago to the Mechanical Engineering team responsible for cooling system design.
- I intend to submit a chartership application this year with IMechE. (I have BEng Aero Engineering)

The general concerns I now have are as follows…

- I effectively started on the same salary as a direct entry graduate when I moved to BAE 3 years ago, despite having had 3 years prior experience. My first 3 years were largely spent in operations roles or graduate placements so they weren’t directly relevant to the Shock engineer role I applied for.
- After 3 years with BAE I find I’m now earning the same as those with 3-4 years post uni experience, when I have approaching 7. Moving to a new (internal) role again last year has meant another learning curve so if anything I feel further away from the skill level of those with 6-7 years in the same department.

And my queries about what to do about them…

- Should I be pushing for a higher pay grade that is more in line with others who have similar time served? What is that first 3 years experience actually worth? I feel slightly short changed that my pay today doesn’t reflect that.
- What does the job market think of people like me? Well rounded engineer or Jack-of-All Trades and master of none? I’ve effectively had 3 or 4 different roles across 3 different sites in Operations, Project and Engineering. I’ve been in my current job 1 year, and my previous roles were each approx. 2 years in length so not been job hopping every 6 months..
- What would my job prospects be as contractor? Is it better to have a wide range experience to call upon providing I’m not going for niche analysis jobs?
- I do feel slightly envious of those who have settled into a role straight from uni and progressed quite far in the time that I have been moving around, but then the cards didn’t quite fall my way at the start..

[superhans88]

It's not that I'm primarily motivated by salary, it's just a nagging feeling that my early career hasn't been recognised as valuable experience and reflected in my pay packet. Adjusting for inflation I'm earning no more than I was over 4 years ago.

I'm on £38k and most contractors in my office are on £50 and hour for doing essentially the same job so I'd be more than happy to go PAYE on those rates..

I'm just curious what my 6-7 years are worth on the job market versus someone with 3-4.. Perhaps there's only one way to find out!