Five engineering professions stand out in wage development

What do engineers really earn and how have wages increased? The Mediation Institute's review of the average salary for all professions with at least 10,000 employees includes 14 engineering professions. We took a look at them and saw that for five, wage growth was clearly higher than for the others.

The Mediation Institute has looked at the average salaries of 383 different professions in 2014 and 2017 (read the report here) . Those chosen by the Engineer are both pure engineering professions and professions where engineers are part of those who work, such as software developers and university lecturers what engineer makes the most money.

For the university engineering professions, the average salaries in 2014 were between SEK 33,100 (supervisor in construction, construction and mining) and SEK 38,100 (engineers and technicians in electrical engineering). In 2017, they had risen to SEK 36,100-39,800.

For the engineering profession that requires longer education, the average salary in 2014 was between SEK 40,300 (Software and systems developers and others) and SEK 44,600 (University and university lecturers). In 2017, they had risen to SEK 42,400-48,900.

But if you plot the wage trend in a diagram (see below) you can see that five professions had a clear faster rise:

• System analysts, IT architects and others
• Supervisor in construction, construction and mining
• Engineers and technicians in construction and civil engineering
• Operations managers construction, plant, mine, operational level
• Other IT specialists

(see average salaries and change for all 14 professions in the table below)

Thus, wages have  risen most in IT as well as construction and civil engineering. By contrast, the increase in construction has occurred for supervisors and operations managers, not for those who have jobs classified as "civil engineers in construction and civil engineering".

Among the civil engineering professions there is the highest average salary among “Other civil engineers” - ie different fields than the largest. After that, the civil engineering profession in electrical engineering has the highest average salary, followed by construction and civil engineering as well as mechanical engineering.

Here is the whole table (average salary level 2014 and 2017 for 14 engineering professions with more than 10,000 employees)

The Mediation Institute has also produced statistics for professions with fewer than 10,000 employees, but which are distinguished in different ways.

One is a property manager who has the fifth highest rate of salary increase of all occupations surveyed: 6.6 per cent increase per year between 2014 and 2017, to an average salary of SEK 41,900 in 2017.

Of the 20 occupations with the highest average monthly salary in 2017, there are four occupations with an engineering connection:

• Research and development managers, level 1 (overall, not activity-related work). Average salary: SEK 68,300.
• IT managers, level 1. Average salary: SEK 64,300.
• Managers in architectural and engineering activities, level 1. Average salary: SEK 60,500.
• Property and management managers, level 1. Average salary: SEK 59,700.