What Are Some High Paying Engineering Careers?
You may or may not be aware that engineers can make a lot of money in this profession. Do you wonder how much money? What are the engineering careers that pay the most? Take a look below and you'll find out! Schools offering Computer Engineering degrees can also be found in these popular choices.
Engineering Careers
Engineering is discipline where you use mathematics and science skills to come up with ideas that can benefit humanity. As an engineer, you would oversee the creation, design, production and testing of your idea. Your idea and job duties are based upon the field of engineering you work in. There are many different engineering disciplines available.
For example, if you work in aerospace engineering you might design aircraft and spacecraft. If biomedical engineering is your career choice, you might design medical devices. As a civil engineer, you may design and construct buildings, bridges and roads. In the field of electrical engineering, you may design and manufacture electrical equipment, like motors and wiring.
If farming is your passion, you may decide to become an agricultural engineer and come up with new ways of agriculture production. If finding new ways to locate and extract petroleum from the ground interests you, then petroleum engineering might be a good career choice. Or, if you prefer to extract minerals and metals, then you might like being a geological engineer.
In the computer industry, you could work as a computer hardware engineer and create computer chips and computer systems. Materials engineers focus on creating and improving materials used to build and create things like your house or car.
Salary Information
If you're looking for the highest paying engineering career, then you may want to look into petroleum engineering. CNNMoney.com reported in 2009 that a 2006 National Association of Colleges and Employers salary survey ranked petroleum engineering graduates as having the highest paying starting salary of any discipline. According to that survey, petroleum engineers had an average starting salary of $83,121 annually (www.bls.gov). In May 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that petroleum engineers made an average of $119,960. The top ten percent of these engineers made more than $166,000 a year.
Other high-paying engineering salaries belong to aerospace engineers, who had a mean annual income of $96,270 in May 2009. Biomedical engineers had a mean yearly wage of $82,550. Civil engineers saw a mean annual salary of $81,180. The yearly mean income of electrical engineers was $86,250.
The mean annual wage for agricultural engineer was $74,640 according to the BLS in May 2009. Computer hardware engineers saw a much higher mean yearly salary of $101,410. Material engineers, on the other hand, had an average annual income of $85,660. Lastly, geological engineers had an average yearly salary of $82,080.
Salary Based on Experience
Salary.com gives some insight in how experience affects your salary as an engineer. These statistics are from April 2011 data. New engineers without experience had a median salary of $55,656. Engineers with 2-4 years of experience saw a median salary of $66,227. With 4-6 years of experience, this increased to $79,537. The median salary for engineers with 6-8 years of experience was $93,655. Finally, engineers with 8-10 years of experience earned a median salary of $107,544.
To continue researching, browse degree options below for course curriculum, prerequisites and financial aid information. Or, learn more about the subject by reading the related articles below:
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