Salaries in the US

Are you looking to improve income, reduce expenditure or reduce time at work? Probably very different answers!

Also in the North (Leeds/ Bradford) but work for a company based in London. My income is lower that it would be in London but the cost of living up here (especially if you move out of the cities) is great comparatively. Where my colleagues have two-bed flats in London I've spent the same money on a 5-bed barn conversion.

I work shorter hours than them but because i'm not chained to work I'll probably not progress as high as I could, and i'm fine with that.

To increase income, maybe the US or the Middle East

To reduce expenditure, move to Middlesborough!

To reduce time at work, move to France

Best of all 3? I'd say probably the north of England :-)

What type of Engineer? What type of experience?

6 weeks vacation is crazy, currently that's about 70k USD/year. I would guess that is about 10 years experience for Civil Engineer, Entry salary for Chemical(75)/Mechanical(67)/Electrical(67). Of course rarely will any of these get more than 4 weeks vacation 25 years in.

RunnerSam wrote:

What type of Engineer? What type of experience?

6 weeks vacation is crazy, currently that's about 70k USD/year. I would guess that is about 10 years experience for Civil Engineer, Entry salary for Chemical(75)/Mechanical(67)/Electrical(67). Of course rarely will any of these get more than 4 weeks vacation 25 years in.

Yeah, in the US you get 2 weeks starting, 3 weeks after 5 years, 4 weeks after 15 and it generally stops there (there is some variance on this, but that is the general model for an engineer. Many non-white collar jobs start with NO vacation and slowly move up, taking over 20 years to get up to 3 weeks). Vacation in the US often means you're still on call as an engineer too.

Also, if you get laid off or change companies, you start over on vacation time back at two weeks. Blue collar jobs start back at as if they didn't have any experience at the bottom of a payscale. I'm not sure how that is structured in the UK.

You can very rarely negotiate for three weeks if you have 10+ years experience somewhere else, but many companies won't give it to you, even if you turn down a job offer over it.

Pay depends on the engineer type, but that sounds about as good as it gets here without moving into management, especially based on your take home. However, is hard to compare since I don't know cost of living for you.

Just move elsewhere in the UK, where you are nearer to work, so commuting doesn't suck time (and costs) away.

Get some hybrid medical insurance, like Vitality (who offer benefits to folk who keep healthy running etc) or Benenden, that's cheap, but can be used for that odd thing that comes up, and being able to speak to a doc straight away.

Thanks for the replies.

I’m an electronics engineer. 25 years experience. Salary hasn’t gone up with the rate of inflation for the last 8 years (3 years with no pay rise at all). I’m not doing badly, but not as well as I was.

My wife is on 70k and rising, with 16 years experience. She’s a lawyer.

Just seems there is no progression however good you are.

I agree I need to move to a different area if possible.

Mid Brit wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

I’m an electronics engineer. 25 years experience. Salary hasn’t gone up with the rate of inflation for the last 8 years (3 years with no pay rise at all). I’m not doing badly, but not as well as I was.

My wife is on 70k and rising, with 16 years experience. She’s a lawyer.

Just seems there is no progression however good you are.

I agree I need to move to a different area if possible.

damn! that's pretty low.

Whenever I feel envious about the quality of life Europeans have, I hear stories like yours and remember that don't make jack squat compared to many Americans.

Typical Electronic Engineer in the U.S. will make 65k-80k fresh out of college and depending on the state, will take home the equivalent of 45,000 GBP per annum. The ceiling for EEs is also higher, usually around 90k-110k.

I have a $5,000.00 deductible on my health insurance. I always have to pay for MRIs unless something awful happens and I hit my deductible (of course if they sneak an out of plan radiologist in to look at the results, I could pay above the $5k deductible). I have never been able to get an appointment for a check up with a GP that was sooner than 3 weeks out. And my office keeps switching plans and the plans keep dropping doctors so I have pretty much given up on getting to see the same GP every time.

It is a crappy lifestyle, but electrical engineers in the oil and gas industry get a pretty good premium these days. Down side is that you can get sent all over depending on what you do. But companies like ExxonMobil provide really good deals when assigning employees to work abroad. You get a very generous housing allowance and bump in pay to leave your home country.

My roommate in college and brother are both EE. Based on them, I'd think you should be at around 120k USD @45, maybe more. 70k USD is average entry level. Obviously you have to take into account cost of living and benefits.

Do some research into what others in your area and in your field get. Ask for a raise based on those statistics. You could also send some applications(local or not) out just to see what they offer you. My father was fairly experienced in his field but the company he was working at wasnt great, got something like 30% more after he realized it and went to work elsewhere. (He was a similar age to you at the time, and making a similar amount, but in ChemE).

Best of luck!

Assuming mechanical or civil or electrical engineering I'd say someone with 5 years experience would easily have your compensation, maybe even sooner. Someone in their 40's would be looking closer to 90-100k a year or 70-78k pounds.

But you'd have less PTO than you currently do, that's the takeaway in the United States. Much less holidays and much less PTO.

In my company you'd start with 3 weeks PTO with 7 holidays. You may be able to negotiate more because of your experience, but would still probably start with that company with 4 weeks tops and the national holidays.

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WTF?

I'm a mechanical engineer with 20 years experience (BS, ChemEng, MS MechEng) with a PE.

I get 3 weeks of vacation. My salary is $150K USD and with bonus and sick time payout (they buy back unused sick time at the end of the year at $0.50/$1.00) I grossed $174K in 2018; I live in a medium/average cost of living area. I am probably at the high end, but typical pay for someone with my experience would be at least $100-$120K in the US.

When you say "electronics engineer" do you have a BS in Electrical Engineer from an accredited university? Your pay is basically entry level salary in the US and our taxes are also quite a bit lower I think. Do you get a pension?

Few things. Brit here on west coast (wife is American). Will add this is based on being out of uk for 6 years.

Hard to just look at salaries - need to look at other costs. Key ones are 1- housing. Obviously west coast is not like rest of the US but even across mid west I think housing costs more here than in uk. Also - and I anticipate much reaction to this comment but I have found most Brit’s I’ve met here only want to live in certain parts of the US. I mean.... mid west - cheap as anything but for someone used to UK climate not sure about you but I couldn’t cope with 4 months of the year too cold to run outside and 4 months too hot to run except first thing in am or last thing at night. Pros and cons to everywhere - but if you want to live in a vibrant city with good jobs things to do neighbors that you can shoot the s*** with - it’s going to be expensive. 2 - taking on board your comments about nhs - over here your health insurance will just come out like another tax. And one thing I argue with my wife about - even though we have most expensive insurance - we still need to wait for referrals for my kids when they had few things going on. I mean not nhs waiting time but enough to make me be like what am I paying for! Not sure about you - but we fly back at least once a year - with the kids that can run to 10k. Easy. Also - and not that we have to do this - and not sure your family situation - but we rarely get vacation now as we pretty much use it for going back home. Something to think about. 3- again you didn’t say if you hafe kids (and know this is big problem in uk now) but quality of schools are big problem and either you live in place with high prop taxes and good schools or you pay to go private (which isn’t even the guarantee it is in the uk).

Just few initial thoughts before I doze off. Gas is cheaper though.