All engineers are equal, but some are more equal than others
18 Apr 2002
From the days of 'concurrent engineering' to the latest vogue for 'collaborative manufacturing', there has been a certain school of thought that believes 'an engineer is an engineer'.
The barriers between the traditional engineering disciplines were being broken down, the thinking went, as the 'team' ethic took over and everyone pooled their efforts to the same common goal. Well, as any project engineer will tell you, nothing gets done without a team effort. But that doesn't mean that all engineers are equal, as the latest salary survey published by the Institution of Chemical Engineers highlights once again.
Two years ago, when the IChemE last surveyed its members, its conclusion was clear - chemical engineering was not only the best paid of all the engineering disciplines, it was also a creditable third behind the medical and legal professions. The latest results, showing an overall 10 per cent salary rise for chemical engineers over the past two years, provide no evidence to change that conclusion.
Salaries do vary sector by sector, as might be expected, but the traditional major employers of chemical and process engineers (the titles now being generally accepted as synonymous) still pay the most. These are oil, contracting, chemicals and consultancy. In the oil industry, for example, the overall median salary for a chemical engineer is now £50 000 a year - a median figure that hides a more than satisfactory progression from £25 000 for engineers under the age of 25, through £59 200 by the time they turn 40, to a very comfortable £70 000 as retirement beckons between 55 and 59. And remember, these are median figures. At the top end of the survey's figures for the oil industry (the ninth decile for the statistically minded), the median for those in their late fifties is a tidy £108 850.
Admittedly, the oil industry has always been something of a shining star - though, not surprisingly, it is still beaten by the City and its financial services. Here the overall median for those with a chemical engineering background is £70 000, hitting £116 500 between the ages of 50 and 54.
But the contracting (showing an increase of 50 per cent on two years ago to £46 050), chemicals (£39 000 overall, rising to £50 200 by the age of 50) and consultancy (£42 000 overall median, hitting a peak of £54 000 at 45-49) sectors by no means underestimate the value of their chemical engineers.
Less fortunate are chemical and process engineers in food and drink, metals and ceramics, and the perennial runners up, those employed by the still civil engineering-dominated water sector. None of these should feel too hard done by, however. According to figures published by the Engineering Council at the end of last year, chartered chemical engineers still top the engineering league tables.
Whether looking at the average (£59 479 for chemicals, £52 246 electricals, £48 229 mechanicals, and £42 660 for civils) or median salaries (£46 000 chemicals, down to £36 000 for civils), chemical engineers can take comfort in knowing that the difficult decision they made at the tender age of 18 may just have been the right one.
