Occupational burnout is flaring up across disciplines, and at-risk engineers need to balance professional drive with personal wellbeing.

Once cast as an occupational hazard for rarefied high-status/high-pressure jobs, burnout has become a primary health issue of the post-pandemic workplace.

Across professions and sectors, reported incidence of employee burnout has continued to rise, some four years on from the Covid-19-era stresses seen as its breakout trigger.

A February 2023 survey of 10,250 global employees by Future Forum found that 42% declared themselves as experiencing burnout – a two percentage point rise on the previous quarter poll, and its highest figure since the think tank began to track the strain in May 2021.

Around 52% of employees polled (in January 2024) by the US National Alliance on Mental Illness reported feeling burned out in the previous 12 months because of their job, and 37% reported being so ‘overwhelmed’ that it made it ‘hard to do their job’. Meanwhile, Mental...