What Will Companies Pay Engineers Around the U.S. in 2017? Here’s a Guide

Recruiting firm Randstad suggests employers pay EEs with three to 10 years of experience US $78,000 to $106,000 in 2017; Pacific region salaries are the highest

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How much should employers pay U.S. electrical engineers in 2017? That’s a question recruitment firm Randstad tries to answer in its 2017 engineering salary guide, released in February. The answer? It depends on the region.

For example, salaries for engineers in the Southeast with 3 to 10 years of experience, range from approximately US $78,000 to $94,000, and Pacific region salaries range from $88,000 to $106,000.

The 2017 Randstad salary guide covers a range of engineering specialties, including industrial, civil, and mechanical engineers, in nine U.S. regions.  Detailed results are available here.

Bar chart showing low, median, and high salaries for electrical engineers and engineering managers in eight U.S. regions Source: Randstad

I zoomed in on two categories—electrical engineers and engineering managers (see chart). The EEs included had three to ten years of experience, the engineering managers seven to ten years. Randstad drew its numbers from publicly available data from the Economic Research Institute, along with results of two of its own surveys, each including salary information from 9,000 to 10,000 electrical engineers and 3000 to 4000 thousand engineering managers.

Looking at median salaries, EEs around the United States earn from around $84,000 in the West North Central and East South Central, to a high approaching $96,000 in the Pacific region.

For engineering managers, the Mid-Atlantic region far surpassed its nearest competitors, with a median salary of nearly $140,000. These were followed by New England and the Pacific at just over and just under $128,000, respectively. The East South Central ranked last on that list, with engineering managers receiving a median annual salary of $115,000.

In other engineering salary news, Boston-based recruiting firm Winter Wyman Search announced that it has seen a big jump in salaries for big data engineers over the past 12 months, noting that big data engineers can command $15,000 more than user interface engineers and $27,000 more than general software engineers. According to the study, typical salaries for big data engineers range from $125,000 to $155,000, with software engineers receiving $70,000 to $170,000 and user interface engineers receiving $90,000 to $155,000.

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