I'm sure they're up there. I take it you mean process engineers for chemical plants or refineries or the like? What discipline? ME? ChE? Either? Other?
I would think they make good money for a couple of reasons:
1) The industry is high paying in general because the companies make a killing
2) Product prices are capped based on market restraints. The only controllable factor that allows more profit is savings on manufacturing. Process engineers do this. They are heaviliy linked to the money- whether many of them realize it or not.
I would think that it would depend on the industry.
In the electronics and electrical world, I would think an electrical engineer would be the highest paid (eg GE power).
In the software world, I would think a computer or software engineer would be the highest paid (eg Microsoft).
If you mean all engineers in all the countries, I would think some Microsoft millionair engineer would be the top paid, and I would guess they are either electrical, computer or software.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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In my field of manufacturing, process engineers are not the highest paid. Process engineering is usually the initial title you get. You learn to tweak products brought online by somebody else. Even though small tweaks can save large amounts of money, it doesn't rate you as high on the salary scale or bonus structure as being a product engineer does. If you want to make more money, you work to get a product engineering position or an applications engineering position.
To make the most cash, go back to school, get your MBA, get a cushy sales job where you make commission on high volume parts you didn't have to work to sell ('cause that's the application engineer's job), then spend the majority of your time playing golf and forwarding all customer questions on to your already swamped process engineer 'cause hey, he's the new kid on the block and your swing needs improvement.
If you can't tell, it's been a rough past few weeks.
I'll agree with the previous two posters, it all depends on your field and where you're located. I'm in manufacturing and would make a heck of a lot more money in consulting or working for the federal gov't for that matter. Some folks in petroleum/chemical process engieering positions can make 1.5X what I do. Case in point: one of my buddies in college graduated with a degree in ChemEng with a 3.0 GPA. I graduated with a 3.75 GPA in Industrial & Systems. I started out at $15K less annually than he did, and I lived in a higher cost of living area.
I have found over the years, that if my boss tells me I am making good money, leave it at that, because all the talking, whinning, and arguing in the world doesn't change my pay scale.
In the field I work in (subsea pipelines) for process engineers read chemical engineers. And they probably are the highest paid, excluding the engineers who work offshore because they get silly bonuses.
Perhaps by "Process Engineers" you mean "Chemical Engineers" doing work associated with chemical plants and that sort of thing. If so, then YES that's the top of the pile for different types of engineering disciplines. And God bless'em, too. If they can survive a ChemE curriculum and pass Physical Chemistry, Heat & Mass Transfer, etc., then they SHOULD make more money.
Besides that, then "Process Engineers" are widely used in manufacturing industries to create/develop/document various manufacturing processes to make/modify stuff. Sadly, almost all jobs associated with manufacturing in the US are on the BOTTOM of the pile.
"Perhaps by "Process Engineers" you mean "Chemical Engineers" doing work associated with chemical plants and that sort of thing. If so, then YES that's the top of the pile for different types of engineering disciplines. And God bless'em, too. If they can survive a ChemE curriculum and pass Physical Chemistry, Heat & Mass Transfer, etc., then they SHOULD make more money."
DEFINITELY agree with this one, my background and education is I/E engineering maintenance. I have been back at uni the last few years doing my ChemEng degree (branching out a bit) and my part time day release course involves more hours of lectures per week than most of my mates who are doing full time courses at Uni! Go figure, full time job, family, plus usually in excess of 12 hours per week of lecture time + all the extra work required on top of that.
I try to be careful about saying one discipline is "tougher" than another. I think they are all tough.
Having said that, the difficulty of one's chosen path is not always related to renumeration. If it was, Einstein should have been a multi-billionaire.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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