The economy is slowly rebounding, and engineers have cause to celebrate. After not budging for years, their salaries have increased for the second year in a row, according to our annual survey. And the positive news does not stop there. The average bonus has also increased, and job satisfaction is at an all-time high.
This year, the average engineer is making $96,813 per year, versus $93,465 last year. Sixty-nine percent of engineers have had an increase in their base annual salary from 2011. Only 2 percent have experienced a decrease in pay, which is down from last year's 4 percent. The remaining 29 percent of engineers said their pay remained the same.
The average expected bonus this year is $11,906. Last year's average was $9,440. Seventy-two percent of engineers said their bonus will stay the same, while 16 percent said it will increase from last year.
Engineers working in the Southwest (Calif., Nev., and Ariz.) are bringing in the most money: an average of $110,101 per year. Those working in New England (Me., N.H., VT, Mass., R.I., and Conn.) come in second, with $106,846. Engineers in the Midwest (Mich., Ohio, Ken., Tenn., Ind., Wis., Ill., Iowa, Mo., N.D., S.D., Neb., and Kan.) bring up the rear, with $88,838. The only other region where engineers are not breaking six figures is the Southeast (N.C., S.C., Ga., and Fla.), with $94,350.
Your job discipline will adjust the amount of money you are bringing in. Engineers working in electronics make the most annually; their average salary and bonus come in at $110,782. Software engineers are a very close second, with $110,661.
The semiconductor industry offers the highest average salary ($115,772) and an average bonus of $17,546. The defense systems industry comes in second, with an average salary of $109,797 and an average bonus of $13,988.
Since you spend the majority of your time at work, it is important to enjoy what you do for a living. Luckily, 56 percent are extremely or very satisfied with their design engineering career. Factors that contribute to satisfaction in the workplace include problem solving, technical challenges, and the opportunity to be creative. More specifically, the engineers we surveyed cited continuous learning, being able to make real products, interfacing with people from other countries, and developing products that help people as reasons they are satisfied with their career.
Interesting that the results of our survey seem to buck the current feeling in the general populace around a stalled economy and stagnant economic growth. I'm running into this mixed messaging a lot lately, depending on the geographic location of who I'm talking to and the type of work/industry sector that they're in. Part of me thinks some of the current economic doom and gloom is too tied to what's going on abroad and the upcoming election, yet there are still so many hard-to-ignore signs that growth hasn't returned to where people expected after four years of "the great recession." In any case, I'm pleased to see engineering as a bright spot and hope there's some kind of filter down or filter up effect for the broader, global economic ecosystem.
That is an encouraging sign. I could be wrong, but I believe the respondents to salary surveys going back as early as last year said they would tell their children to run in the other direction, screaming, rather than join the profession. Of course, that could be said for any profession.
Yes, 83 percent saying they would recommend engineering to a son or daughter is very impressive. I would imagine that comes from a combination of factors: pay, ability to find a new job if necessary, satisfaction with the work, security. The longevity of the engineering positions says a good deal about security. I would imagine it also helps that there is a perceived (and probably real) shortage of engineers in the United States.
A couple of years ago, a study showed that money buys happiness, up to about $75,000 a year. Beyond that point, additional money didn't result in additional happiness. It did, however, result in additional satisfaction. (In this study, "happiness" meant feeling happy on a day to day basis, while "satisfaction" meant having a sense that your life is going as well as it possibly can).
I agree, Dave. Money affects satisfaction only to the point that you're out from behind the 8 Ball ($75,000 as you say). After that it's the quality of how you spend your day, your family relations, belonging to a positive community. I think design engineers show their greatest level of satisfaction when 83 percent recommend their profession to their children. That's big.
Lauren, during a financial year I used to participate 2-3 times for similar salary & satisfaction survey with different agencies. In all the cases, they asked for "are you satsfied with the current employment", we can select either satsfied, not satisfies or no comment. This answers are very blind because they had not defiend the parameters for satsfaction.
So far everything is fine with my company but the recent economic slowdown in EU may affect our business and in an unpredicted situation.
Dave, you are right, the parameters for satisfaction is not yet cleared. If salary is the only parameter, then higher salary or take home can make majority satisfied. If we are considering the other factors like work challenges, facilities, perks, work culture and environment, reporting structure etc, then the satisfaction level may come down further.
I agree with the comment and the parameters are strictly related to their money and satisfaction in their career instead of taking in other sources. But the information we collected shows people with the highest salaries are the most satisfied. Also, be sure to check out the whole salary survey (you can find the link on pg 3 of this story) because it shows what factors contribute to job satisfaction and contains tons of more great info.
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