1. Mechanical Engineer
Average starting salary: $82,000
Average mid-level salary: $92,000
Average late career salary: $127,000
2. Data Science & Machine Learning
Average starting salary: $89,000
Average mid-level salary: $107,000
Average late career salary: $120,000
3. Mining Engineer
Average starting salary: $68,000
Average mid-level Salary: $89,000
Average late career salary: $109,000
4. Project Engineer
Average starting salary: $71,000
Average mid-level salary: $89,000
Average late career salary: $100,000
5. Automation & Robotics Engineer
Average starting salary: $77,000
Average mid-level salary: $92,000
Average late career salary: $99,000
6. Civil Engineer
Average starting salary: $59,000
Average mid-level salary: $72,000
Average late career salary: $96,000
7. Electrical Engineer
Average starting salary: $67,000
Average mid-level salary: $82,000
Average late career salary: $96,000
8. Alternative Energy Engineer
Average starting salary: $65,000
Average mid-level salary: $82,000
Average late career salary: $91,000
I was surprised to not see Petroleum Engineering on the list.
Did some math.
Graduated in ChemE in 1998
Adjusted for inflation, those numbers are lower in purchasing power (and in some cases dollars) than the published numbers when I graduated.
2008 to 2013 derailed a lot of careers.
Note that EE’s starting salary is quite low in this list, which is entirely a result of the H1B invasion.
40 years ago, a double E could write his / her own ticket. It stayed that way until the last 15-20 years as the weight of Indian and Chinese engineers crushed wages. One of the brightest young EE’s I’ve met told me he sent out 130 resumes before he ended up being hired as a tech, where it became obvious he was way more capable then that.
The jobs shown will be inundated by foreigners, with only defense jobs being “safe” from the onslaught.
Ha.
Back when I started in mechanical the starting wage was expected to be somewhere around 35K.
I am an engineer and for these average earnings I’d go get a trade license and start a business within a few years. Why? For starters and just off the top of my head:
1. Probably better pay or lifetime earnings than these averages.
2. Everybody has to satisfy customers but at least in a trade you usually know what to deliver instead of playing guessing games for some oaf who only knows what he / she does not want.
3. You will never be part of corpocracy or diversity training. All you have to do is produce good product at a competitive price.
4. Stuff breaks all the time and you will probably never be out of work. If you are an engineer you will mostly be last hired and first fired and you will probably never see the bullet coming.
5. While rewarding at times, if you get into a creative role, line engineering can be awfully repetitive. Problem solving and inventing are fun but a lot never get to do either.
6. Most of the time, to get into a place where you can make good money you have to get into management and you will learn then that all your problems have two feet.
7. For the degree of effort to become a really good engineer you can become a really good something else that probably pays better. If you want a decent 9-5 job being an engineer is not a bad gig. I never worked 9-5 and most good and successful engineers don’t either, more like 7-5 or 7-7 most days.
8. You rattle around in an office a lot of the time and if that is your cup of tea, have at it.
9. Most engineers are just technicians. They follow a protocol seldom using their training outside that box.
10. In a trade and your own business you are pretty much inflation proof since you set your rates and do not just have your compensation determined. As an employee of a corpocracy you will eventually find that your late career salary is similar to your inflation adjusted starting salary. My late Father said that big companies can pay big benefits but not all do. Stock options and such can add up in longevitiy pay if you live long enough.
11. If you build a business you will either have something to pass on or to sell one day.
Can’t say a thing about the computer related fields. A lot of them are not engineers anyway.
Petroleum Engineers were once at the top of the compensation heap but they are in slim demand these days. That work ebbs and flows and if you join it you will have a career much like a gold miner mostly from one camp to another in and out of work or expecting the next layoff. That is the way it was from 1982. About half of my 40 years were not salad days.
I was a consulting petroleum engineer the last 20 years of my 40 year career. I traveled the world drilling holes in the earth, had a lot of fun, invented a few things, solved a lot of challenging problems and I think was successful and made good money doing it all. I also was able to get out before anyone tried to make me diverse or truly fell victim to diversity discrimination. Most people in my business made a whole lot more than these averages. Even a non-degreed subsea tech or driller made at least double these averages for a time while employed.
If you are a white male these days and don’t want to be a lick-spittle or meekly conform you had better find a trail you can travel alone and not join a corporation or especially any giverment employment.
That’s the way I see it.
Many thanks for taking the time to prepare this concise list.
There’s a reason I chose being an ME.
Nothing about Chemical Engineers/Process Engineers?
That is because this country does not plan to build anything themselves. The work will go to India,China and other countries for pennies on the dollar and “engineering” will be done over the Internet.
Thanks for sorting those.
From the article:
3. Mechanical Engineer
Mechanical engineering is a highly diverse discipline with an incredible amount of career options. Among other things, mechanical engineers are responsible for designing machines and other devices and to control manufacturing systems. Their expertise is needed in a wide variety of industries, including resource extraction, manufacturing, and agriculture. Because of the range of industries where mechanical engineers are needed, it is unlikely that the market will become oversaturated with entry level engineers.
I’ve said for almost 40 years now - a good ME can do almost anything - precisely for the reasons stated above. I’ve done well by moving from actual Mechanical Engineering to Project Management - it’s the same logical, organized mindset. I’d advise any grad to put in several years in what I call “real engineering” before moving to management or anything more administrative. The experience really paid off for me.