I regularly get ads sent to me for electrical engineers - which are the people that design power grids, industrial control systems and so on. The salaries in this field are not particularly great unless you are a specialist for something like HVDC or do a lot of in field world and get an allowance for that. The pencil pushers at the office don't seem to get paid that much. I wonder if that is pushing the pay scale down.
For electronics engineers, the pay varies. I have seen job offers from companies looking for engineers with 8 years of experience at £35k. Those just get laughed at. In the UK 40 hours at minimum wage is £24k. So they are saying they value you at little more than someone that stacks shelves in Asda. £35k is okay for a junior, but they should expect to see that climbing into the £40k+ range once they have more than a few years under their belt.
The more serious companies pay £45-50k for a mid level engineer, and £60-80k for senior engineers. £90-110k for principal if that role exists at the company. I know of people who work at large multinationals in Cambridge into the mid £150k range. The problem they have is they are virtually unemployable (at the same rate) if they get let go - these jobs really only exist in the big companies and you rarely get hired directly into them, you reach that position by promotion until maximum incompetence. Still, make hay while the sun shines.
I know even offering at the upper end of the senior range we have struggled to find the right people for FPGA work. They are out there, but they get snapped up quickly, and the competition is hot.
This is my impression from the South of England. The job market has cooled a bit in the last year though.
Another factor is that in many cases salary is confidential. It's not illegal to talk about salary in the UK, and employers technically can't discriminate against you for disclosing it, but it can create awkward professional situations when the guy next to you realises he earns 25% less than you. I quite like the Norwegian system where tax returns are public - levels the playing field somewhat.