As you contemplate your career path, knowing where you stand relative to your peers will help guide your decisions. Sponsored by AECWorkForce.com, this annual compensation survey reports on earnings of structural engineers, including annual salary, bonus, and raise. Benefits—including insurance, retirement, and others—are investigated as well. Additionally, the survey asks each respondent for his or her satisfaction level with compensation, as well as separately for earnings and benefits.
Because construction is a laggard industry, structural engineers are still enjoying the benefits of last year’s strong revenue. A recent ZweigWhite Perspective "A/E firm revenue records strong 2007 growth," by Christopher J. Klein reported that "the growth rate of the A/E industry in 2007 bettered the performance of other professional services industries and far outpaced that of the U.S. economy as a whole." Therefore, it should be no surprise to anyone that this report is primarily positive for compensation trends that reflect 2007’s growth.

Survey method
Invitations to participate in the Structural Engineer 8th Annual Compensation Survey were e-mailed in February 2008 to more than 33,300 subscribers to Civil Connection (an e-mail newsletter that includes CE News and Structural Engineer subscribers, as well as others). Of the 7,073 e-mails that were opened (21 percent), 3,240 people launched the online survey. The survey remained open for four weeks, and during that time we received 2,404 completed records. For this analysis, we separated the data provided by structural engineers (41 percent of the responses) from the civil engineers’ data (56 percent), which is reported in the June issue of CE News. After cleaning up the data, 876 responses were analyzed from structural engineers who described themselves as engaged in design, analysis, management, and construction of buildings, bridges, and other structures. All of the data presented in this article, including in all of the tables and figures, is from permanent, full-time employees, except for the paragraph describing self-employed respondents.

Earnings
Punctuated by the strong finish in 2007, increases in annual salaries, bonuses, and raises were reported from all market sectors, experience levels, and positions. Additionally, higher percentages of respondents reported earning bonuses and raises, when compared with last year’s survey. Annual salary, bonus, and raise data was analyzed and we have reported first quartile (Q1), median (Q2), and third quartile (Q3) values by market sector, year of experience, and job title in Tables 1, Table 2, and Table 3, respectively.

Salary—The good news is that median annual salaries increased across the board in 2008. When considering public and private sector structural engineers, the median salary increased to $83,300, which is a 4.1 percent increase from the $80,000 reported in 2007; see Table 1. Table 2 shows a steady increase in median annual salary reported by years of experience.
The employees who reported the largest increase in median annual salary are those with four or fewer years of experience. The 2008 data indicates an increase in median annual salary between 8 and 14 percent for these employees. According to the Winter 2008 issue of Salary Survey, a quarterly report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the average offer to civil engineering graduates rose 4.8 percent to $49,427; this is on the low end of the range from $48,000 to $59,000 as reported for those just starting a profession in structural engineering.

Bonus —While the median bonus amount as a percentage of annual salary held steady at approximately 7 percent as compared with last year, more respondents received bonuses (72 percent as compared with 65), and the median dollar amount increased slightly to $5,500 (as compared with the $5,350 reported last year). As shown in Table 2, bonuses range from 6 to 10 percent of annual salary.

Raise—The median raise received for 2008 is 5.0 percent of median annual salary. While this median did not change from last year, the amount of respondents to receive a raise increased to 87 percent (from 83 percent last year) and the range of raises also increased to vary between 4.0 and 7.5 percent. Unfortunately, this may be the end of a four-year trend of increasingly higher raises. Considering at the broader industry, A/E firms are predicting a median salary increase of only 4.0 percent for duration of 2008, according to ZweigWhite’s newly released 2008 Policies, Procedures & Benefits Survey of Architecture, Engineering, Planning & Environmental Consulting Firms. This represents a slight downturn from that publication’s data that reported an actual median salary increase of 4.3 percent in 2007.

Benefits
Complementing earnings—and potentially more essential for some employees—benefits offered by employers can significantly alter employee satisfaction with total compensation.

Insurance—The most important insurance benefit is by far medical. Fortunately, 99 percent of respondents report receiving this benefit from their employers. In fact, the Job Outlook 2008—a study conducted by NACE—found that employers are offering what graduates are seeking. For the past five years, the group has found that medical insurance is consistently at the top of the list for both graduates and employers. Despite the fact that nearly all respondents receive medical insurance benefits; this is not without a cost to employees. Findings from the Policies, Procedures & Benefits Survey show the majority of firms (57 percent) require employees to contribute to health insurance premiums—typically $78 per month for employee-only coverage and $302 for employee and family coverage.

According to the NACE Study, other insurance benefits that top the list for new hires are life and dental. Findings from our survey indicate that these two benefits have increased since last year (from 81 percent to 85 percent for dental, and from 74 percent to 79 percent for life.) While the number of respondents who received vision insurance and long-term disability insurance offerings increased from last year (from 63 percent to 68 percent for vision, and from 63 percent to 65 percent for long-term disability), short-term disability insurance offerings have increased the most. This year, 67 percent report receiving this benefit, up 6 percent from last year’s data.

Many other insurance benefits are enjoyed by many structural engineers; click here for a complete list.

Retirement—Consistent with last year’s findings, the number of respondents who receive a 401(k) or other retirement plan where the firm makes a contribution is on the rise. Up 5 points to 73 percent of respondents from last year, this benefit has increased by 13 percentage points when compared with 2006 data (when 60 percent of respondents reported receiving this benefit). All other benefits that our survey inquired about are decreasing in popularity with two exceptions: profit sharing (which remained steady at 19 percent) and ESOP (which increased to 13 percent from last year’s 10 percent).

Paid time off—The two-thirds/one-third split between employees who receive the traditional time-off benefits of vacation, personal, and sick days (67 percent) versus those employees who report receiving paid time off (PTO) benefits (30 percent) remains the same as last year. Additionally, for the second year in a row, data indicates that employees receive more time off benefits from a traditional plan; the median total number of days received for a traditional plan is 20 versus a median of 18 days for a PTO plan. Upon further investigation, staff that received more days off on a traditional plan took more days off (a median of 14 days) when compared with those who took time off under a PTO plan (a median of 13 days).

Overtime—Fifty-eight percent of respondents report that they are compensated for overtime; see Figure 1. While this number is up slightly from last year (up from 55 percent in 2007), the majority of engineers who report receiving hourly pay as compensation (27 percent) is essentially the same. One in 10 engineers report that overtime is considered in bonuses.

Training—While still significant in employer offerings, many of the additional benefits for employee training that saw a significant jump last year have flat lined in growth this year, including paid professional registration (78 percent of respondents), paid training for CEUs/PDHs (75 percent), and tuition reimbursement (53 percent).

Other—From direct deposit to flexible spending accounts, structural engineers receive a wide variety of other benefits; click here for the complete list.

Other factors
The other factors that weigh in on compensation are too numerous to count; however, three stand out as most significant.

Education level—As in years past, those employees commanding the highest median earnings are those who have received a master’s in business administration ($105,500) or a doctorate degree ($99,000). While Ph.D.s still earn 14 percent more than those employees with a master’s degree, the expected increase in salary for a master’s degree as compared with a bachelor’s degree was missing from this year’s data. In fact, median earnings for bachelor’s degree and master’s degree recipients were within 1 percent of each other at $88,000. This corresponds with the significant salary increase for employees with fewer than seven years of experience (as reported above), but goes against conventional wisdom.

Licensure—The time during which licensure has the greatest impact on salary is between four and 10 years of experience. For structural engineers in this category, respondents who earned a P.E. reported a median of 13 percent higher salary and 43 percent higher bonuses than those who did not hold a P.E. license.

This year, we could not report on the salary impacts of passing the EIT/FE exam for those employees with fewer than two years of experience because 100 percent of those employees who responded to the survey have passed the exam!

Location—The effects of geography are a factor of median salary. Click here to see a map showing median salary by state. Also, click here to see a list of median salaries listed for each state.

Self-employed structural engineers
We purposefully identified those structural engineers who are self-employed and learned from this year’s survey that the median total income from providing structural engineering services to clients was $105,000 (Q1=$80,000 and Q3=$185,000). This small group, representing 6 percent of the total respondents, performs 95 percent of its work in the private sector and a few offer additional services of civil engineering (18 percent) and forensic engineering (14 percent) as well. Fortunately for this faction, 60 percent of them realized an increase in income for 2007.

Interesting findings
New this year, we asked, "Were you promoted in 2007?" Of course not everyone can be promoted each year; our data revealed that 19 percent of structural engineers were promoted. Of those who did receive a promotion, the highest concentration was among employees with four to seven years of experience (45 percent) and seven to 10 years of experience (34 percent). Not surprising, this correlates well with the above findings on salary increases as a result of licensure for these same employees. Also of note is that employees with 20 to 25 years of experience reported the fewest number of promotions, with just 7 percent.

Again we inquired about respondents’ satisfaction level with earnings, benefits, and total compensation. On a positive note, the proportion of this year’s respondents who are satisfied or very satisfied with total compensation increased to 67 percent (up slightly from last year’s 64 percent). Another bright spot is that benefits offered are pleasing survey respondents at a rate of 72 percent. This is relatively unchanged from last year, as is the fact that most respondents are very satisfied or satisfied with earnings (61 percent). While both response rates are positive, benefits still outrank earnings for satisfaction level.

Figure 2 details the satisfaction level of employees with different years of experience. The group that appears to be the most satisfied with earnings (69 percent), benefits (79 percent), and total compensation (72 percent) is made up of staff with seven to 10 years of experience; perhaps this is a result of all of those promotions as reported above. Of note is that only 44 percent of staff with fewer than two years of experience reported being very satisfied or satisfied with earnings; however, a deeper investigation reveals that these employees are not necessarily unsatisfied, as 40 percent reported feeling ’neutral’ on earnings and 16 percent reported dissatisfaction levels. In fact, when looking at responses for very unsatisfied and unsatisfied, it is the group with 25 to 30 years of experience that reported the highest level of dissatisfaction with earnings (24 percent).

Conclusion
Overall, structural engineers are satisfied with the total compensation offered by their employers; and both earnings and benefits received increased this year. Engineers remain busy and are generally staying put at their current employers. Read the web-exclusive "Job search resources," by Shanon Fauerbach, P.E., for additional information about the current job-search climate.

The Structural Engineer Compensation Survey is executed every year in February. It is our goal that after examining the data here that you feel well informed about industry compensation norms in order to make informed career decisions.

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Additional insurance benefits received by structural engineers in 2008
52% Flexible spending account for medical expenses
47% Accidental death & dismemberment insurance
33% Life insurance for spouse and dependents
29% Pre-tax payment for insurance/cafeteria benefits plan
28% Voluntary life insurance
25% Employee assistance program
23% Professional liability insurance
22% Wellness program, such as providing healthy snacks, flu shots, massages, or onsite yoga
18% Discount or contribution for health club membership
16% Long-term care insurance
10% Supplemental disability insurance
9% Travel insurance or worldwide emergency travel assistance
9% Orthodontia insurance
9% Employment practices liability insurance
7% Onsite health club
7% Cancer insurance
6% Non-covered medical expense or co-payment reimbursement program
5% Auto and/or home insurance discounts
4% Prizes for achieving wellness goals such as quitting smoking or weight loss
4% Weight management program dues (such as WeightWatchers or other)
3% Naturopathic/chiropractic/massage therapy assistance
1% Identity fraud expense insurance



Other benefits received by structural engineers in 2008.
83% Direct deposit
78% Paid professional registration
75% Paid training for CEUs/PDHs
56% Flexible scheduling
53% Tuition reimbursement
39% Subsidized or free parking
34% Cell phone or phone allowance
14% Company car or car allowance
11% Telecommuting
11% Subsidized transit fare
10% Charitable matching

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Median salary by state (alphabetical)
State     Median salary
AK         Insufficient data
AL         $78,000
AR         $85,000
AZ         $92,500
CA         $95,000
CO         $83,950
CT         $75,000
DC         $115,000
DE         $90,000
FL         $68,000
GA        $70,000
HI         $77,085
IA         $80,000
ID         $90,750
IL         $84,000
IN         $62,720
KS         $87,110
KY         $81,000
LA         $106,500
MA         $90,000
MD         $90,760
ME         $72,000
MI         $74,000
MN         $74,000
MO         $78,500
MS         $54,000
MT         $62,000
NC         $85,000
ND         $90,250
NE         $82,500
NH         $75,000
NJ         $91,500
NM         $84,000
NV         $88,250
NY         $89,000
OH         $73,000
OK         $82,000
OR         $85,000
PA         $80,000
RI         $88,400
SC         $86,750
SD         Insufficient data
TN         $89,500
TX         $85,000
UT         $76,500
VA         $89,000
VT         $60,944
WA         $84,000
WI         $74,700
WV         $59,120
WY         Insufficient data


Median salary by state (sorted by salary)
State     Median salary
DC         $115,000
LA         $106,500
CA         $95,000
AZ         $92,500
NJ         $91,500
MD         $90,760
ID         $90,750
ND         $90,250
DE         $90,000
MA         $90,000
TN         $89,500
NY         $89,000
VA         $89,000
RI         $88,400
NV         $88,250
KS         $87,110
SC         $86,750
AR         $85,000
NC         $85,000
OR         $85,000
TX         $85,000
IL         $84,000
NM         $84,000
WA         $84,000
CO         $83,950
NE         $82,500
OK         $82,000
KY         $81,000
IA         $80,000
PA         $80,000
MO         $78,500
AL         $78,000
HI         $77,085
UT         $76,500
CT         $75,000
NH         $75,000
WI         $74,700
MI         $74,000
MN         $74,000
OH         $73,000
ME         $72,000
GA         $70,000
FL         $68,000
IN         $62,720
MT         $62,000
VT         $60,944
WV         $59,120
MS         $54,000
AK         Insufficient data
SD         Insufficient data
WY        Insufficient data