With a median annual salary of $80,000 reported in Structural Engineer’s 7th Annual Compensation Survey, structural engineering is entering into what Salary.com qualifies as a "high-income level job," which the site defines as those earning $80,000 to $100,000. This is obvious good news for individuals, and reflects the strong growth in the construction market in 2006. This median represents an increase of 6.25 percent from the median annual salary reported in 2006, which was $75,000. This marks the largest percentage increase in median annual salary seen in the past four years, and possibly the first to outpace cost-of-living increases.

Since 1975 the Social Security Administration has established a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) based upon the increases in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. This is the percentage increase in benefits required to maintain the same level of income from year to year, if all other factors remain equal, to prevent inflation from eroding Social Security benefits. While economists agree that COLA is not a prediction of inflation, many use the value as a comparison for wage increases. By plotting the COLA values for the past four years along with the percentage increase in structural engineers’ median annual salary—as reported in our annual compensation surveys—it is apparent that this is the first in four years in which the increase in structural engineers’ median annual salary exceeded the increased cost of living.

While this upward trend is certainly a boon for the industry, it isn’t represented across all experience levels. For example, the median starting salary for structural engineers of $48,000 has remained essentially unchanged for four years. Likewise, the median annual salary of $53,000 for employees with two to four years of experience hasn’t gone up.

Fairing a bit better are those with four to 10 years of experience, who have received increases in median annual salary in the range of 2 to 3 percent during the past four years. Of course, such nominal increases are not in line with cost-of-living increases, as shown above. Interestingly, when we evaluated compensation satisfaction this year, employees with four to seven years of experience reported the highest levels of dissatisfaction with earnings. This correlation leads me to believe that these "worker bees" are the most vulnerable in such a competitive labor market.
Professionals with more than 10 years of experience realized the largest increases in median annual salary. Our data shows that these senior-level staff enjoy an annual increase of 6 to 8 percent.

To learn more about these findings, read "The 7th Annual Compensation Survey," click here.