Engineer Salaries
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UK Average Salaries
In the UK, the national average salary was recorded around £30,000 per year for 2019. However, this is the median pay for the whole of the UK, meaning it doesn’t take into account age, gender, job type or location. A civil engineer salary can be expected to be above the £30,000 per year value as it is a well-paying career as well as being a fulfilling career.
Regionally, earnings for employers in London is £736 per week, whereas the median for the whole of the UK is £585 per week, (A difference of £152), which means that location does matter but London has much higher living expenses, so the difference in pay may not be worth it.
For example, for any graduate job, you can expect a starting salary of between £20,000 – £30,000, but that all depends on your chosen career path and if there is any room to progress in your career.
Civil Engineer Salary
A civil engineer salary varies between companies, but the general trend is that smaller companies will pay more on average compared to larger companies due to competition for engineers. For example, a large international company like AECOM has no issues with advertising or showcasing themselves as a good consultancy to work with, but a small local engineering consultancy will struggle to get the same exposure, so they will generally offer more in terms of pay to attract experienced engineers.
Becoming a senior engineer depends on whether you have become chartered with the ICE or ISTRUCTE. Once you’ve obtained this qualfication, it will become much easier to find and apply for senior engineering roles.
Most companies offer incentives such as pay rises or bonuses for becoming a chartered engineer, and If they don’t offer you any rise in pay, then you are more than eligible to find a role as a senior engineer with a higher pay grade. You’ll find that most companies will try and hire you or offer better incentives to have you join them once you’re a qualified engineer.
Also, yearly salaries vary depending on the company that you work for and which discipline you’ve chosen as a career path (i.e, structural engineer, bridge engineer, highway engineer, temporary works engineer). Some of the disciplines pay more than others, but they are all roughly within the same range.
Should you negotiate your salary?
In my opinion, you should definitely negotiate your salary if you’re offered something which is lower than the average, or you’ve gained enough experience to deserve a higher pay than offered. I’ve seen too many civil engineers who are underpaid but have years of experience, but have just become complacent with their current company but definitely deserve more for what they do. There are plenty opportunities to increase a civil engineer salary and sometimes you have to take necessary risks to increase your yearly pay.
Another common way to rise through the ranks and earn more money is by leaving the current company and join in another company as a senior engineer or the next level up from your current position.
I’ve personally seen a CAD technician who was paid around £22,000 per year with 4 years experience go up to a salary of £32,000, only by leaving the company to work for a medium size consultancy.
I’ve seen another engineer quickly rise through the ranks and become a regional director in his 40’s just by moving companies every 3-5 years since he graduated. Everytime, he moved companies, he always got a position which was higher than his previous, i.e, he moved from engineer senior, then senior to principle, and then from principle to associate before becoming a regional director. This is a great way to progress in your career as well as earning more money.
In addition, most larger companies will always have some leeway in their team budget to offer more in case a potential candidate asks, and if they really want you, they’ll definitely pay more to have you on your team.
What I would definitely not do is ask for a crazy amount more than mentioned on the job description. For example, if a civil engineer role offers a salary of £28,000, I wouldn’t ask for £38,000 because they will probably flat out say no and you’d probably lose that opportunity. I would probably ask in the region of £32,000 and gauge how much they are willing to offer. Also, this can be quite subjective, as you might have experience in a specialist area of design (i.e, blast engineering), where you have the opportunity to ask for more.
At the end of the day, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
