Highest (and lowest) Paid Civil Engineering Disciplines or Industries

[CElder2]

Based on industry or discipline, where's the most(or least) money at in Civil Engineering?

In other words, for people who are roughly at the same points in their career, who's likely to be earning more money? I'm specifically asking about construction, structural, transportation, geotechnical, and land development. There may be other disciplines under Civil that I'm missing.

If anyone is able to attach numbers to this, that would be great.

I'm also wondering about the possibility that industry could play a big role? For example, Civil Engineers employed in federal or oil/gas will be the biggest earners regardless of discipline.

 

[msquared48]

Environmental Cleanup from what I have seen.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[CElder2]

Just some more info. I started out looking on BLS which has "Civil Engineers" with a median pay of $79,340, which to me is useless information since it seems most (or all) Civil Engineers work in some discipline or another, and this number lumps together all experience-levels.

So far I've found payscale.com to be the most useful, because it allows the user to dig down a little bit discipline and experience. I also found the site to give accurate data on my own salary as well.

Median pay for mid-level engineers:

Geotechnical, transportation, environmental, or structural engineer: $69,215 < median pay < $69,746
Construction engineer: $72,132
*Project engineers - land development = $62,152

*Information on land development sparse. A good chunk of mid-level land development engineers move into project management, which compensates better.

 

[CElder2]

Based on the numbers, for people with over 10 years experience, it appears that the five top paying positions are

*Principal Structural Engineer = $121,948
Senior Structural Engineer = $94,041
Engineering Project Manager = $93,285
Senior Geotechnical Engineer = $92,151
Senior Environmental Engineer = $91,578

*I'm not a structural engineer, so I can't speak to the huge gap between principal structural and senior structural.There may be a huge difference in responsibility and/or qualifications.

 

[Lomarandil]

From what I've seen at the few companies I've worked for, a principal structural engineer will likely be stamping plans (taking on the liability, especially for high risk projects) as well as making business decisions (management, hiring, marketing).

A senior structural engineer is probably managing teams, and may be stamping plans (depends on the office), but is less likely to be making the business decisions.

 

[graybeach]

I think the highest is probably power utilities near big cities. Here Civils generally get paid on the same scale as Electrical.

 

[Lomarandil]

Agreed. Power industry civils (especially if you know PLS) get a nice pay bump (presumably from working alongside their Electrical counterparts). I've also heard there was a decent bump from the energy/petroleum industry, although that may not be the case any more.

 

[CElder2]

I did some looking into the BLS data by industry.

As of May 2014, some industries which pay Civil Engineers the most:
Oil and Gas Extraction - $126,830 (560)
Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing - $104,230 (480)
Waste Treatment and Disposal - $102,380 (580)
Pipeline Transportation - $101,830 (350)
Waste Management and Remediation Services - $97,100 (1150)
Power and Communication Line and Related Structures Construction - $94,410 (630)
Electric Power Generation Transmission and Distribution - $90,210 (1170)
Architectural Engineering and Related Services - $88,710 (137,560)


--The number of people employed in the industry is in parenthesis.
-- "Architectural Engineering and Related Services" is only listed for perspective.

 

[nkrigPE]

In my experience Structural Engineers make more than civils in other specialties at the same career points. Probably due to the supposedly more rigorous technical requirements of their work.

I work in land development and flood/drainage. Based on recent job offers, the offers for the flood/drainage positions were substantially higher than the LD positions.

 

[CElder2]

nkrigPE interesting. Would you say the companies making you the offers are comparable as well (size, location etc)?

 

[nkrigPE]

CElder, company size may have some contributing factor as the LD offers have been from smaller to mid size companies and the storm water ones have been from some of the largest firms in the state. Locations were the same for all.

 

[MartinLe]

Another question I'm asking myself right now ... do consulting firms pay worse than constructing firms?
The former only sell their work, the latter move a lot of money and skim off a bit. But I don't know if this reflects in the wages somehow. Would be hard to compare anyway since you wantto take actual workload into account too, and there's fewer data on this.

But, if CElder2 doesnt see this as thread hijacking, I'd like to hear some observations on this.

 

[CElder2]

MarinLe, yeah I can't weigh in on that personally, but I would definitely say your question is within the scope of the thread. Hopefully someone would be able to offer some insight on that.

 

[MartinLe]

I've taken a (very brief) look at the data from ingenieurkarriere.de - a portal of the Germany engineers association VDI.

Consulting offices pay project engineers (non management):
43k€ / 49k€ / 56k€ a year (25 / 50 75 percentile, respectivly)
for 40/42/44 hours a week (same percentiles, actuial hours, not contractual)

While plant building companies pay:
45k / 52k / 62k
for 40 / 41 / 44 hours a week

I could not adjust the filters for actual engineering discipline (CE, ME ...) and it looked like CE/Architects as consultants make even less. Take this with a huge heap of salt.