General > General Technical Chat
Why are engineering salaries so poor in the UK? Or, why does the US pay so well?
Gyro:
That certainly holds up for some I've worked with!
There were some very good ones, including my boss, but there were some truly hopeless ones too. Typical cross section in fact.
rstofer:
--- Quote from: coppice on May 21, 2018, 09:07:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: rstofer on May 21, 2018, 07:57:01 pm ---Why do engineers make so much money in Silicon Valley? Because they're worth it! That and the law of supply and demand.
--- End quote ---
I think you misunderstand the concept of supply and demand. Demand for engineers in Silicon Valley outstrips supply, so salaries rise. The supply is low because its so expensive living in Silicon Valley that people are reluctant to move in. The "worth" of the engineers has little to do with it.
--- End quote ---
I'm pretty sure I understand supply and demand. The 'because they're worth it' was facetious. Originally...
On reflection, it's true. Try to bring a product to market without engineers and code weenies. If the companies could succeed while paying less, they certainly would.
Supply and demand (specifically lack of demand) is why mechanical engineers typically make about 80% of an EEs salary.
If you want to find out what certain jobs pay, go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and search for appropriate titles. Then you can drill down and find out what the jobs pay in certain locales. It's a handy tool for career planning.
https://www.bls.gov/
I'm reasonably sure that some other agency publishes cost of living (or perhaps housing) for the various locales. It would be interesting to correlate cost of living versus salary. And another agency can tell you about weather. Some people want to live where it snows and others only want to see it on a postcard.
One problem with the BLS data is that, within a job title, it isn't very granular. Electrical engineers are all lumped together. This means that utility electrical is munged with all other flavors. There is a category for computer engineers and a couple for software engineers and they do break out programmers. So, the data has to be thought through. When you look at EE salaries in Silicon Valley, it's pretty clear that it doesn't include utility engineers.
BrianHG:
--- Quote from: rstofer on May 21, 2018, 09:55:33 pm ---If you want to find out what certain jobs pay, go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and search for appropriate titles. Then you can drill down and find out what the jobs pay in certain locales. It's a handy tool for career planning.
https://www.bls.gov/
I'm reasonably sure that some other agency publishes cost of living (or perhaps housing) for the various locales. It would be interesting to correlate cost of living versus salary. And another agency can tell you about weather. Some people want to live where it snows and others only want to see it on a postcard.
--- End quote ---
Thanks! :-+
CatalinaWOW:
The way to make out in the US is to work for a company that is based in the Silicon Valley and has nationwide operations with a single payscale. Getting Silicon Valley pay while living at Dallas/Ft. Worth cost of living works really well.
Not always easy to land those gigs, and for fairly obvious reasons they have relatively low turnover. Best way is probably to start in the Valley and then get a transfer. Also requires comfort with the climate (both physical and social) at the low cost location, but there really are some very nice low cost places.
To OPs question, it is because companies find they don't have to pay more to get and hold engineers. The salary plus all the other factors (home country, benefits, ....) are sufficient for a sufficient number of people. Complicated way to say supply and demand.
Harb:
I am an Engineer in the TV and occasionally Radio Broadcast industry, but I have been pretty lucky to own my own TV Outside Broadcast business for most of my life, so I have never really worked for another company on a permanent basis so I cant really say what the wages are like, other than I do a lot of contract work these days.........I have worked for a UK owned company operating here from time to time, and they pay really well....better than the US, so maybe it more of a "we pay what we have to" thing in the UK.......32k pounds sounds like pretty ordinary pay to me.....maybe the job requires less there than here or in the US ?
120k here leaves you with a lot of responsibilities, but I have heard of OB engineers that earn a lot less, but do a lot less too.......to get to the high end you really have to be on your game and be prepared for all the downsides of the job.
A lot of Day labour with plain old day rates seem to keep the show going here too .
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