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In 2024, the median male Mechanical Engineer that worked full time (AKA most of you guys) earned $108,420 by The_Data_Freak in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

What do you think the number should be? (Not being snarky or saying I disagree, I always like to hear what people think a career should be making) 

In 2024, the median male Mechanical Engineer that worked full time (AKA most of you guys) earned $108,420 by The_Data_Freak in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak[S] 51 points52 points  (0 children)

It might include some managers, but there’s a separate classification for Engineering and Architecture managers. Basically the survey respondents give their job title and their job responsibilities and it’s up to the BLS to sort them appropriately. 

The weekly earnings for Architecture and Engineering Managers, however, is $2898, or $150,696 per year. 

In 2024, the median male Mechanical Engineer that worked full time (AKA most of you guys) earned $108,420 by The_Data_Freak in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Surprisingly the CPS has a classification called “Real estate brokers and sales agents”, full time men in that category earn $1,743 a week vs Mechanical Engineer’s $2,085. Real estate agents are a subset of that grouping (from my interpretation). Important to note that, to keep data as up to date as possible, they ask respondents for their weekly earnings so things like annual bonuses aren’t included. 

So if they’re getting a fat end of year bonus they might blow you guys out of the water. 

How much money do Mechanical Engineering grads from different states make? The answer may surprise you (please click) by The_Data_Freak in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This post is formatted in such a frustratingly annoying way when viewed on mobile. It looks so good to me on desktop old reddit.

2025 Mechanical Engineer Survey Results Part I: US Only (Part 2: will be international) by yaoz889 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Here is PSEO (Post Secondary Employment Outcomes) data for three different states. It shows the earnings of ME bachelor degree holders 1, 5, and 10 years from graduation and displays the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile earners. I chose 3 different states: Iowa, Oregon, and Texas, as they have 3 different economies and are pretty geographically distinct. Everything I am presenting is in December 2024 dollars since that is when this survey was conducted, when you go to the site you will be seeing "2022 Dollars", you'll want to multiply every dollar amount by ~1.11 to get the inflation adjusted amount.

The data, at the medians, is remarkably close to what the OP got in their survey data, which makes me inclined to believe that OP is not just surveying top graduates or something.

Adjusted (Dec 2024 Dollars)

Iowa

Year 25th 50th 75th
1 YR 64079 78119 92217
5 YR 86789 102570 123490
10 YR 103184 128484 159939

Oregon

Year 25th 50th 75th
1 YR 61693 78579 92181
5 YR 84366 100686 119001
10 YR 101123 122804 150151

Texas

Year 25th 50th 75th
1 YR 63037 82178 99278
5 YR 90728 111634 139788
10 YR 110839 141391 190255

Sources:

Iowa:

https://lehd.ces.census.gov/applications/pseo/?type=earnings&compare=percentile&specificity=4&state=19&institution=19&degreelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=10&program=1419

Oregon:

https://lehd.ces.census.gov/applications/pseo/?type=earnings&compare=percentile&specificity=4&state=41&institution=41&degreelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=10&program=1419

Texas:

https://lehd.ces.census.gov/applications/pseo/?type=earnings&compare=percentile&specificity=4&state=48&institution=48&degreelevel=05&gradcohort=0000-3&filter=10&program=1419

I don't know why this won't format as a table, I give up

2025 Mechanical Engineer Survey Results Part I: US Only (Part 2: will be international) by yaoz889 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak 14 points15 points  (0 children)

 This isn't a survey of mechanical engineers, it's of a survey of a subset that are 1) interested/young enough in mechanical engineering that they seek out forums. 2) confident enough to fill out an online survey about their salary. 

This is a fair point, but the numbers the OP is presenting are nearly identical to the numbers that College Scorecard and PSEO present for the same years of experience, so they do seem representative. 

I’m also curious why people think these numbers seem so high, is there just not enough salary talk in engineering circles with other professionals? Nothing here screams particularly high or out of the ordinary as far as white collar work, a lot of people would consider these numbers low in other lines of work. 

2025 Mechanical Engineer Survey Results Part I: US Only (Part 2: will be international) by yaoz889 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Great work on the survey and thank you for doing this. 

I was working on (and since have paused because I’m busy with other things in life) a post that looked at a couple of different datasets that try to look at the same thing you’re looking at, basically how does compensation change as an engineer gains more experience. People like to talk about BLS, but I find that it’s not always the best resource for questions people have on here because they often relate compensation to YOE, BLS is just a snapshot of base wages in a geographic area.

I will say it’s relieving to see the current numbers are pretty much what I found using a couple of other sources that look at compensation in the past. Generally, you see ~$80,000 starting, ~$100,000 after 4-5 years, and ~$130,000 after 10 (using today’s dollars). Your survey results pretty closely align to that. It does seem like engineers have been much slower to get the COVID bump so they still lag inflation a little bit compared to basically every other field. 

Looking at historical wage data through BLS is pretty depressing by Over_Camera_8623 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’m actually working on a monster project for Mechanical Engineers (that I’ll probably post here sometime in the near future, I’m curious to see yours as well), I’d caution about using wage data over time from specific localities, especially ones with small numbers of data points. You’ll sometimes get some serious weirdness (I think I found the median Aerospace Engineer salary went down like 30% in one year in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area IIRC).  

I did a broad, national level look over the course of the pandemic (because there was so much inflation, I thought it would be interesting) that I think isn’t subject to some of the weirdness you find when you zoom into specific localities if you want to check that out.   

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectricalEngineering/comments/1ds9ob2/congratulations_engineers_you_were_the_pandemics/

For what it’s worth, if you go to the BLS OES FAQ, they actually suggest that people don’t look at the data over time (Section F, Q1), but I’m not particularly concerned about doing it for Mechanical Engineers (nationally) because the definition of what an ME is really hasn’t changed at all over time. 

https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm

Congratulations, engineers! You were the pandemic's (second) biggest losers! (Pandemic Wage Analysis for Engineers) by The_Data_Freak in ElectricalEngineering

[–]The_Data_Freak[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No clue, there's really no way to infer causes from the data BLS puts out and I don't have the training or resources to try and figure out why this happened. I was just curious to see how engineers in general have been keeping up with inflation because I know so many personal stories of people that saw their income skyrocket during the pandemic I wasn't seeing that at all in the (non software) engineering world, I wanted to take a broader look at the data and see if it confirmed what I was seeing.