The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released new data on engineering salaries. This year, we’ve included the growth (or decline in some cases) from last year.
Since we last reported wages by engineering discipline, we’ve seen something new – wage decay. In some cases that means salary increases are not keeping up with inflation. In other cases, the pay for engineering has decreased in actual dollars.
The number of engineering jobs is in flux as well. The BLS stats show overall engineering occupations are projected to grow 6% from 2020 to 2030. A good portion of the projected job growth will come from services in demand such as rebuilding infrastructure, renewable energy, oil and gas extraction, software development, and robotics.
The Ups and Downs of 2022 Salaries
Some of the salary figures are odd. Average pay went down for agriculture engineers. Likewise with chemical engineers. It's hard to tell whether that is actually happening or whether that indicates a change in how the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers data. The pandemic may have been a factor as well.