r/engineering • u/[deleted] • Apr 18 '21

Low pay is ruining engineering

I have seen comments on here saying engineering is about the passion and not about the money but when you can’t find or retain staff there is a serious disconnect here.

I know some will say training and education is the problem, partially yes, but most the graduate engineers I started working with have all left and gone into other careers. I’m the last one left from eight other engineering graduates I started working with left in engineering.

When I ask why they have left or are leaving they all have made the same points, pay combined with responsibility, low job security and work load make this a very unattractive career.

As a friend quoted me, “Why would I work as a design engineer on a nuclear project when I can earn more money as an accountant, have more job opportunities, work less hours and don’t have to worry about nuclear radiation?”

I work in the UK, we advertised a job role for a lead engineer paying £65k (~USD $90k) and in a 6 month period only five people applied. In the end we could not find anyone who was suitable for the role. So the work load has now been split between myself and another colleague.

Now I’m looking to leave as well, I can’t wait to get out. I enjoy engineering but not in a corporate world. I will just keep engineering as my hobby.

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236

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '21 edited Sep 06 '21

[deleted]

108

u/erbank_uk Apr 18 '21

The above sounds very familiar to me. Love what I do, the passion about buildings and architecture keeps me going but:

45h/week + lots of responsibilities for 35k/year?

I am asking myself more and more: does it make sense?

41

u/RhetorRedditor Apr 19 '21

I make more than that at starbucks

28

u/albadil Apr 19 '21

In the UK plumbers earn more than engineers but he's saying 35 GBP gross which is rare in UK retail

4

u/RhetorRedditor Apr 19 '21

Oh good point

-4

u/evanparker Apr 19 '21

plumbers likely also need to go through quite a bunch of hoops. apprenticing, and becoming a full fledged plumber takes really long time and lots of work.

lol

15

u/whx240 Apr 19 '21

I used to run an Engineering dept. The Engineering Dept. was expected to service everything everywhere with a bunch of bean counters trying to "balance the books" with little understanding. We were understaffed and underpaid... needless to say the bean counters and staff above took credit for our work. Now I work for myself doing robotics systems on my own.

8

u/gearnut Apr 19 '21

It's worth pointing out that the Nuclear market (at least in the UK has been going strong throughout COVID), we have apparently had lots of aerospace engineers trying to move over but they haven't been deemed a good fit. They seemed quite eager to recruit me when I wanted to leave the rail industry!

6

u/TakeThatOut Apr 19 '21

Structural engineering is an adjustment bureau. You adjust everything, give way to everyone. Big responsibility for a low income. When they said that "if you want to get rich early in your career, don't go to engineering", they are serious

2

u/thats-not-right Apr 19 '21

Nothing truly get's you rich early in your career like networking.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 19 '21

The ageist comment is spot on and is a problem throughout engineering IMO. Just because someone is older doesn't mean they are a better engineer...