Job Advertisement, 2 posts û Plumber ú60k, Engineer ú25k. 31

[chris9]

In the UK, tradesmen such as plumbers, plasterers, bricklayers, joiners and electricians earn far more than fully qualified and experienced engineers.

Generally you can become a tradesman in a couple of years on the job training and perhaps a short college course. Compare this with a minimum of 6 years full time study and four years post grad experience to become a professional engineer.

Is the UK the only country to have this kind of job market or do other countries also experience this?

 

[jmw]

I doubt it.

I am just illustrating the real problem with engineers; they have too much fun doing their work to remember to chase the money and material rewards down.

Engineers are easy prey for the HR types and the accountants to exploit.

 

[sc]

How many bricklayers, plumbers, builders, etc work till retirement in their chosen profession. Many leave in their late 40's early 50's because their bodies have had enough.

How many engineers fail to retire at 65 because they love the work? I know of at least 10 in my town. The oldest is 73 and still going strong (or being a pain in the a$@).

regards
sc

 

[chris9]

SC,

It must be nice to find a job that you love doing so much that you will work until 73.

I think I'll spend my retirement playing golf and travelling, assuming I can afford to retire at 65 and I live that long.

 

[Lorentz]

Hello Chris9:

This is a very interesting thread because of the many diverse - and sometimes contradictory - opinions expressed by the participants.

Some feel the trades people are overpaid. Others feel that engineers should be happy with the lower salaries, because they are compensated by having more interesting and less physically demanding jobs, plus better working conditions (though it has been pointed out that not all engineers work in air conditioned offices).

Who is right? I think that the difference in salary levels is mainly due to the fact that trades people have more bargaining power than engineers. Employers usually have the luxury of time and can afford to shop around for engineers that fit their price range. As far as I know it has always been this way, and if anything the salary levels for engineers are headed downward now that outsourcing to the third world is getting into full swing.

There is nothing wrong in comparing your salary to that of trades people, but don't stop there. Look at the salaries of bankers, stockbrokers, real estate agents etc. These people also enjoy comfortable working conditions and often earn astronomically more than trades people.

And they don't feel guilty about it.

Maybe you will be happy as a bricklayer, but if you are considering leaving engineering anyway, take a look at some of the careers available in business before you settle on a final choice.

Good Luck to all of us!

 

[4tuna]

One of the reasons tradesmen may be paid more is that they produce a directly sellable commodity - something that results in immediate or short term revenue. This is why there are many developers/builders who are millionaires, but fewer engineers - because they produce products that are sold at a high profit margin. Consequently, they can pay their labor a higher rate to be more productive.

Do autoworkers make more than automotive engineers? I don't know, but an autoworker is directly responsible for how many automobiles that are produced and sold. The contribution of the engineer, though perhaps equally or even more important to sales, is more abstract and difficult to quantify.

This condition is not limited to engineers, but is common to many scientific professions where research or critical thinking is a primary focus. Revenue drives all business decisions, including compensation. Unfortunately it can be difficult for management to connect revenue DIRECTLY to research and engineering in a tangible way.

The real answer here is that if you are happy laying bricks, go make money! If you want an intellectually challenging position where you think and solve problems, and are rewarded with non-monetary compensations that brick-laying can't match, then become and engineer.

 

[Lorentz]

Very well put 4tuna.

It may be years (if ever) before the work that an engineer does today becomes part of a product that is sold and generates revenue. I believe that this delay factor is the prime cause of the poor bargaining position most engineers find themselves in, and hence the lower salaries.

 

[corus]

Where there is a demand and short supply then prices will go up. This would also be true for engineers. So if all 236,000 of you who log into this forum resigned and became bricklayers, I'd be a richer man. It's worth thinking about, please.

corus

 

[GregLocock]

"Do autoworkers make more than automotive engineers? I don't know, but an autoworker is directly responsible for how many automobiles that are produced and sold. The contribution of the engineer, though perhaps equally or even more important to sales, is more abstract and difficult to quantify."

I work for a car manufacturer in Australia. We pay our shop floor guys 30-40 thousand (Australian), top mechanic or technician 50k, starting graduate engineer 45 k (bit flaky on that, might be 50) top engineer 96k. Bear in mind that there are shift allowances and overtime paid by the book and other benefits, and the terms and conditions are not the same. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that the trades guys get another 10k one way or another.

As to the second part, well, I haven't seen it broken down like that, it isn't the way we think. In product engineering we know that the plant have to be able to build our design, if they can't build it well that is OUR problem. A design that is deemed unnattractive, even if it is well engineered and assembled, can kill the profitability of that model. Yet people will buy more attractive, less well assembled cars.


Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[PieEater]

Sorry guys

Coming in at the tail end, but if money is the be-all about being an engineer, then the answer is simple, go free-lance and double/triple your staff pay.

No union dues, no hoildays, your own pension and medical insurance, usually much better anyway, best of all no annoying bosses. Free-lance is a two edged sword, if I don't like it I can walk, usually within 1 week.

I've been freelance for 20 years, sure there are bad times, but when asked when am I going to get a career I point to 18 years of work with 12 differnt companies spead all over the world.

Pie Eater

 

[chris9]

In my line of work (FEA), if I get the analysis right every time and we don't have any component failures then people start to wonder what I'm doing all day. If nothing ever breaks then why do we need an FE Analyst? Surely it would have been OK anyway!

I’ve saved the company treble my annual salary in just two weeks by preventing an almighty mess up. But again you can’t prove this because it probably would have been all right anyway without me, right?

The true value of an engineer is very hard to prove to shareholders.

 

[jmw]

Chris, you hit the nail on the head!

Products and components that work right first time and every time quickly are forgotten. Every one is focussed on todays problem device.

I have times when discussions with the client have bordered on the absurd; " I know you have one of our widgets, we sold it to you 20 years ago. No i don't think you can have replaced it, why would you?" Sure enough, you get to site, you take them on their own plant and you show it to them.

The frightening thing is that if this did go wrong they'd be a week finding it and then tell you how rotten it is , it's never worked right, it's no good and it's costing them $kkkks every minute it's not working.

Paradoxically, products that don't work right first time or everytime can get you a better rep than those that do. It's all about response. These are reasonable guys, they know s**t happens. They are very impressed by the speed with which a service engineer turns up (at $600 a day plus expenses), how polite and helpful he is and how quickly he got it all back together. He now comes so often he has his own reserved bay in the car park.

This is now a good product in a difficult application where you "gotta expect the occasional problem" but backed by great service.

No one has heard of the better product they have elsewhere on the plant which does a better job under worse conditions and never goes wrong.

Moral: to be a success you've got be a problem.

Actually, there is a story that you might think appropriate: A man is sitting on a train tearing up newspapers into tiny pieces and spreading them all over the floor. Another passenger finally gets the courage to ask why he is doing it. "It's to keep the elephants away." he replies in all seriousnees." "What elephants, there are no elephants." replies the passenger. "I know, effective, isn't it."

 

[Lorentz]

Hi Again chris9:

In your last post you mention that your work in FEA saves your company far more than your salary. This is all well and good, but take a look at the thread:

Small Business Sourcing of Offshore Engineering>
thread730-86935

and let the following comment sink in:

"I think primarily I might be interested in sourcing some FEA and possibly looking into a little CFD in the future. Pure CAD, if any, would be Solidworks. Small, simple jobs for the FEA."

Your company appreciates that your job contributes to their profitability, but they are almost certainly considering the possibility of saving 80% of your salary by having your job done overseas.

I'm not sure about becoming a brick layer (not at my age) but I think that I (and most of the people in this forum as well) should consider some type of fallback job just in case.

 

[chris9]

Lorentz,

My company was already outsourcing FEA work to India before I joined. You may get the analysis for half the price but don’t expect the results to be correct unless you are prepared to spend time writing work instructions and thoroughly checking every detail. Unless the Indian companies (or any company anywhere) spend time with Design Engineers they are unlikely to appreciate the scope of the problem and come up with viable solutions.

My company underestimated this and paid a heavy price and this is the reason they employed me.

 

[Lorentz]

Hi Once More chris9

I hope that your company continues to feel the need for onsite engineers such as yourself, but I still worry about what will remain of engineering by the end of this decade.

I think a lot of the problems with the initial outsourcing experiments will be cleared up as companies on both sides of the world become more experienced. Eventually a new equilibrium level of employment will be reached, and no one knows yet what this will be.

 

[4tuna]

We've now hit on another aspect of the commodity vs. service idea presented above. It is possible to outsource engineering services to cheaper markets. If comptetition in any field is not geographically limited, cost and salaries will be lower.

E.g., you can't outsource a bricklayer to India. With direct work such as plumbing or bricklaying, you are geographically limited and hence less competition - you pretty much have to pay the going rate. With commodities, it is only reasonable to outsource to other geographic areas when the labor rates offset the cost of transportation. With engineering, these limitations don't apply.

 

[BJC]

The most desirable career path might be to work 15 or 20 years as a brick layer, save some money, take a vacation in engineering school and work the easy life for the rest of your career.

 

[sc]

chris9,

I intend to retire early (hopefully 55) and then spend my retirement having a ball travelling, lounging about , going water skiing, annoying my kids and just plain doing what I please when I please (providing the wife says its OK).

Only 16 years to go . . . . . . .

sc

 

[PSE]

SC,

When you do retire then, you will want to move to a country or location where you can make the most of the exchange rates. Kind of like "offshoring retirees". The cost of living in the US is not going to go down any time soon (if at all). If you have 40 years of life expectancy left, it will eat into your accumulated wealth at an astounding rate.

 

[jmw]

For a proof that shows that engineers will always be poorer than anyone else, follow this link:

http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/money.html

 

[Stormxtc]

Although I am an engineer, I cant get myself to agree with what most of you are saying about tradespeople earning more money and driving SUV's. Lets face it, how many of you would like to look at your future and feel comfertable with how it looks knowing that you will be laying bricks for the rest of your life, or welding pipe in someones bathroom?

I know I would not be wanting to lay bricks in the middle of winter 7 in the morning. And I certainly do not enjoy having two lumps for hands after having worked as a tradesman for all my life.

Also, when you are a tradesman, no matter how good you are, you will have a capping on your salary, whereas when you are an engineer the sky is the limit.

How many tradesman do we know who can charge $US150 per hour for their "thoughts" on a technical issue? Or who can charge thousends for signing off designs?

I think over the long term, engineers are better off.

StormXTC