Thank you gentlemen all for your excellent contributions in response to my PLEA as posted under the heading:
Is it time for the IET to conduct a new Salary Survey - for the benefit of all UK and Ireland Members and Employers?
Perhaps one point from my initial posting that deserves restatement and invites comment from the IET Community as a Professional Body seeking to PROMOTE Professional Engineering as a viable, valuable and rewarding Career Choice to our school leavers - is that the recent survey published in The Engineer Magazine and supported by a leading Recruitment Agency namely CBS Butler does the reputation of our Profession no favours. The 2019 Engineering Salarry Survey by CBS Butler, gathered a totally inadequate number of data sets - only 1568 - data that is consequently spread far too thinly across all fields of UK engineering, all levels of seniority, all grades/categories of professional membership, public versus private sector employment and certainly no salary medians, upper and lower quartiles in each category, nor median salary in 5 year age bands from graduate level to retirement/consultancy level. Consequently the fact that a Chartered Engineer may reasonably expect to earn 50% more than most non-registered, non-chartered engineers is entirely lost from sight. The resultant 'average' salary figures presented (circa £48k +/- £5k) entirely misrepresents salaries being paid to our best qualified Chartered Engineers and thus will serve as a positive DISINCENTIVE to aspiring school leavers. From my own records, I bench marked my salary and in 1979, (as a recently promoted, Chartered Telecommunications Engineer, working in the SE England in Private Industry R&D), it was slightly above that of Public Sector MPs. It is perhaps worthy of note that today, some 40 years later - with backbench MPs on a basic salary of some £80k pa (and ignoring their STILL very generous expenses packages) then mature Chartered Engineers may expect to command and earn between £55k to £75k (not as a Director) in the UK private sector high-tech industries (e.g. Oil, Nuclear, Aerospace, Telecommunications, Electronics, Energy, Automotive, Pharma, Petro-Chemical, Power, Utilities etc). Indeed there are one or two notable exceptions of over £90k earnings on offer if working as a Programme Manager/Technical/Systems Specialist for Amazon, Google, Lockheed Martin, Matrix Churchill, Jaguar Landrover etc..So there is still hope for the healthy growth and promotion of our Profession - but ONLY if we (the IET or an alternative Professional Trade Union such as UKAPE - Now Demised) takes a firm and controlling role in what data is actually published in the media. Please note that this is NOT an elitist rant, indeed quite the opposite. Given that the IET now has in excess of 168,000 Members spread over 150 Countries World Wide, we should celebrate the value and contribution made by all grades of IET Membership whether as Engineering Technicians, ICT Technicians, Incorporated Engineers or Chartered Engineers, recognising that in today’s world, we work in multi-disciplined teams and can expect to receive support and encouragement from our employers towards setting the standards for education, examination, qualification, training and Continuous Professional Development as appropriate, in line with each individual’s potential to grow into larger and larger roles. The excellent and comprehensively informative IEE Annual Salary Surveys, managed and published by the IEE from 1974 until 1998, were examples of how it should be done. Surely, with an annual income from subscriptions alone in excess of £25 million and with the demise of UKAPE after 40 years of frustration within under tan EETPU umbrella, it should now fall to the IET to take back control of the whole process. The IET should be able to offer enhanced levels of promotion, career growth and employment protection to all its Members, just as the BMA does for the Medical Profession. This will be of significant benefit to the Engineering Profession, IET Members and Student Apprentices. It will also be invaluable to Employers and for the general information and ongoing public promotion of the profession. Professional Engineering is probably the most fascinating and intellectually rewarding career that any student or school leaver can choose, and the pay is good too!
FOOTNOTE: At his The Future of Engineering Lecture given on 3rd July 2019 at the University of Hertford, Dr Peter Bonfield asked the audience to suggest potential areas of concentration that he might consider as he prepares for his year as President of the IET. Well here is my developed suggestion - as already touched on during the feedback Q&A session after his 3rd July presentation.
