What’s Keeping Electrical Professionals Up at Night?

Oct. 16, 2019
What’s Keeping Electrical Professionals Up at Night?

How happy are you with your current job? That’s a question most of us will inevitably ask ourselves countless times throughout the course of our working lives, depending on where we’re at in our careers, what type of educational, personal, or work-related milestones we’ve already accomplished or hope to achieve, and how successful we’ve been at balancing work priorities with our personal lives and goals. Although we all know money can’t buy happiness, when you talk job satisfaction with most people, compensation is typically going to be a leading indicator of career fulfillment.

How does the average electrical professional feel about his or her salary, fringe benefits, and overall employment package? That’s a question EC&M has been wanting to know for some time. That’s why we recently embarked on our own proprietary survey to find out more. But before we address that pressing question for the electrical industry specifically, let’s put things into perspective by taking a quick look at national stats. What’s the average salary of a U.S. worker? According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median weekly earnings of the nation’s 117.6 million full-time workers were $908 (or $47,216 per year) in the second quarter of 2019 (not seasonally adjusted). This was 3.7% higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.8% in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers over the same period. Not surprisingly, education matters when it comes to compensation. Full-time workers 25 and over without a high school diploma earned an average $30,576 per year compared to $39,052 for high school graduates (no college) and $70,564 for those holding at least a bachelor’s degree. According to results of the first CNBC/Survey Monkey Workplace Happiness Index released in April 2019, which measured how workers feel across five categories (pay, opportunities for career advancement, recognition, autonomy, and meaning), 85% of American workers are either “somewhat or very happy” with their jobs. 

To get to the heart of how EC&M readers feel about their professions, we  launched our inaugural 2019 Electrical Salary Survey and Career Report, which offers a comprehensive snapshot of our four main audience demographics. Harnessing the data collection power of our marketing services and research arm, Informa Engage, we conducted an online survey in mid August 2019, and received more than 800 completed surveys — revealing statistically significant results that give us a better understanding of our readership. How does electrical professionals’ pay stack up to the national average? Of the four groups surveyed, engineers reported having the highest 2019 base salaries at $103,934 per year, followed by electrical contractors ($89,582), industrial facilities ($86,817) and commercial, institutional or educational facilities ($78,981). 

What keeps these folks up at night? Depending on which group you’re talking to, answers may vary. For electrical contractors, it appears to be “concerns about the financial health of their company;” for engineers, “work/life balance concerns” followed by “looming project deadlines” topped the list. Others put company-paid fringe benefits, such as medical insurance, vacation, and other perks, ahead of pay when it comes to most valued factors for career contentment. For more details on average base salaries in each demographic, the driving forces behind salary increases, frequency and existence of annual bonuses, typical benefits packages, and a host of other job satisfaction predictors, read the in-depth results of our first-ever electrical salary survey..

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