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10.10

2010 Salary Survey Reveals Positive Changes Along with Reductions and Gaps

How does your salary compare to others in your industry? Are you making enough, or too little, or maybe bringing home a bit more bacon than your peers? What about other compensation? How do your benefits stand up compared to the rest of the industry? And what about your technical field — is it offering you all of the compensation that you deserve?

You can find the answers to these questions — and many more — in the 2010 IEEE-USA Salary & Fringe Benefits Survey. Just released, this 23rd annual survey collects responses from nearly 15,000 polled IEEE members (12,825 of whom were employed full-time as of 1 January 2010) to present one of the most thorough and detailed examinations of engineering salaries and compensation ever assembled.

"Members can use the Survey information to guide their careers, especially if they are willing to shift fields," says John Twitchell, chair of IEEE-USA's Employment & Career Services (ECS) Committee. "They can also use the survey to determine whether their pay is competitive. We all think we are underpaid, but this survey allows us to realistically compare ourselves to the marketplace for our services."

In addition, says Twitchell, "Human Resource departments can use the Survey information to ensure their organization is competitive, and that they don't lose engineering talent due to subpar compensation packages."

Compensation

The survey digs deep, examining differences in respondents' income, technology sector, level of responsibility, age, education level, gender, ethnic background, metropolitan area, and much more. It also breaks down results for academic employees. (Consultants' data will be used in a separate report, available soon.)

The results: median income for those working full-time in their primary areas of technical competence (PATC) was $118,000. That number, however, includes overtime, profit-sharing and other supplemental income sources, so subtracting those areas reveals the median primary income to be $113,500.

Those numbers represent a slight drop ($440 in inflation-adjusted dollars) from last year's median primary income.

The survey found a growing gap between those at the highest levels of responsibility and entry-level employees, which it identifies as typical of the broader society trend. According to the survey, the median income for employees working at Level 9 (greater than GS-15) was almost three times as much as those at entry-level positions. Management in particular reported a $39,000-higher median income.

Employees with doctorates or MBAs were also found to have higher median incomes. The lowest median wages were reported in job functions related to manufacturing and production; engineering support; operations, construction and maintenance; quality control and reliability; and education, teaching, training.

How Does Your Field Compare?

The survey examined 40 different areas of technical competence, broken into nine broader categories. The most survey respondents reported working in the computing field (24%), with 18% in Energy and Power Engineering, 16% in Circuits and Devices, and 9% in each Communications and Systems and Control. (Six percent of respondents fell into the "other" category.)

While the number of people working in Communications was less than 10 percent, they reported the highest median income: $127,330.

"The marketplace for engineering expertise values Communications and Electronics more than the hands-on aspects of Industrial Applications or Power Engineering," said Twitchell. "This should be food for thought for undergraduate students in electrical engineering. "

Employees in the Computer or Electromagnetics and Radiation areas reported similar median incomes: $115,000 for Computers and $115,530 for E&R.

The Energy and Power Engineering area fell at the bottom this year, with a median income of $104,710.

"It does not appear that the impacts of Smart Grid spending or the emphasis on Renewable Energy impacted the 2009 earnings of electrical engineers in the Energy & Power Engineering areas," says Twitchell. "I look forward with interest to the next survey to see if the employment effects of these two technologies live up to expectations."   

It's also worth noting that the geographic areas with the highest responses were California and Texas. The lowest level of responses came from Maine and Montana, with just 30 people each.

Gender and Race

The survey found that women's salaries continue to trail men's — even when experience levels are considered. Overall, the difference in median primary income between the genders among those working full time in their PATC is $15,000, similar to the gap displayed in the 2009 survey. And it wasn't just salaries: just over 5% of the survey's respondents were women.

"I was disappointed to see that, based on the survey respondent counts, women appear to be dramatically underrepresented in our electrical engineering field," said Twitchell. "I was also disappointed to see that women's pay lags behind that of men with equal experience. I hope this is a trend that is corrected, sooner rather than later."

The survey also had a low response rate from African American employees (194 responses) and Hispanic employees (361 responses). When broken down by ethnic background, whites had the highest median income ($114,500), while Hispanics had the lowest ($102,500).

Benefits and Other Compensation

Outside of salaries, the survey collected data on "fringe benefits," such as pension and retirement plans, health and dental insurance, daycare, flex-time, maternity or paternity leave, vacation time, and job satisfaction.

The good news here is that full-time employees continue to receive a broad array of health and insurance benefits, with more than nine in ten offered basic health insurance. However, the survey reveals that employer contributions in many of these areas is down, dropping as much as 4 points from last year's survey for life insurance and disability insurance.

Some of the differences are more striking when compared over the last nine years. During that time, the number of employees offered paid attendance at professional conferences has dropped eleven points, to 67%. The proportion of companies offering paid maternity or paternity leave has jumped from 42% to 57%. And the ratio of "defined benefit" or pension plans has dropped from 55% to 37%.

Job satisfaction, meanwhile, has remained relatively even the last five years, ranging from 87% in 2005 to 84% in the current survey.

You can order your copy of the 2010 IEEE-USA Salary & Fringe Benefits Survey here ($75.00 for IEEE members, $99.00 for non-members).

John R. Platt is a frequent contributor to Today's Engineer, Mother Nature Network and IEEE's The Institute. He writes the Extinction Countdown blog for Scientific American. http://www.johnrplatt.com

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.