The past year was difficult for many structural engineering firms. Many projects were put on hold or canceled completely, and for many practitioners, the work just dried up. This severely impacted how firms compensate their staff last year. The positive takeaway of the 10th annual Structural Engineering & Design compensation survey is that earnings have not increased over last year — salary and bonuses remained flat with a dramatic decrease in raises and costly changes in benefits.

Earnings
Comprised of annual salary and bonuses, total earnings along with annual salary increase can quantify a portion of compensation that is most easily comparable.

Salary — Up slightly from last year, the median annual salary reported is $85,500, representing negligible increase over the $84,500 reported last year; see Table 1. Salaries for those structural engineers employed in the public versus the private sector are also reported in Table 1. (Note that these percentages do not add to 100 because 3 percent of respondents did not indicate in which sector they are employed.)

Table 2 shows the median annual salary as reported by years of experience.

Bonus — Remaining steady, the median annual bonus received was $5,000, which is the same as was reported last year. This year, fewer respondents reported receiving a bonus (down to 58 percent from 64 percent reported last year). The median annual bonus received as a percentage of annual salary continued at 6 percent.

Raise — The percentage of respondents who received a raise in 2009 has fallen to 36 percent — the lowest in a decade. Likewise, the median raise for those respondents who did receive one decreased to 3.2 percent of annual salary, a sharp drop from the median 4.3 percent received last year. Table 2 shows median raises received as reported by years of experience.

Job title/position — Another way to look at the data is by job title. Although each firm is organized differently, Table 3 highlights salary and bonus as reported by many common job titles and positions.

Self-employed structural engineers
There were more self-employed structural engineers who responded to the survey again this year (on a three-year upward trend), yet this self-selecting group reported significantly lower earnings when compared to last year. The median total income generated from providing structural engineering services to clients was $75,500 down significantly from $100,000 in 2009 (and $105,000 the previous year).

While the majority of this subset of practitioners reported a decrease in total income in 2009 as compared to 2008 (58 percent), many stayed about the same (18 percent), and a fortunate 22 percent reported an increase. Despite the actual changes over last year, many self-employed structural engineers are optimistic about 2010 with 28 percent expecting an increase in total income.

Benefits
One benefit that we asked about this year was a change in medical insurance. Seventy percent of respondents who receive medical insurance benefits from their employer (95 percent) report an increase in their cost for coverage in the past 12 months (such as increase in co-payments, increase of deductibles, increases in the portion paid for coverage, etc.). Additionally, the majority of respondents who do receive medical insurance from their companies pay some portion of it; only 20 percent receive medical benefits at no cost to them (employer pays for it all). Of those who responded, 21 percent pay less than $100 per month, 20 percent pay $101-$200 per month, 13 percent pay $201-$300 per month, and 19 percent pay more than $300 per month for medical coverage.

There was a decrease in the percentage of respondents who receive a firm contribution to their 401K or other retirement program to 76 percent (down from 83 percent last year).

Survey method
Invitations to participate in the Structural Engineering & Design 10th Annual Compensation Survey were e-mailed to more than 46,000 subscribers to Structural Engineering & Design eNews in March. After removing incomplete data, 589 responses were analyzed — 483 from employees working full time in private-sector firms, 90 from full-time public-sector employees, and 50 from self-employed structural engineers. The data presented in tables in this article represents full-time employees who responded positively to the statement, “I primarily engage in the structural engineering profession, which includes design, analysis, management, and construction of projects such as buildings, bridges, and other structures.”

The response rate from full-time structural engineers was lower than last year by approximately 30 percent, but there was a slight uptick in percentage of self-employed structural engineers responding to our survey (up to 8 percent from 7 percent last year).

Conclusions
The difficulty of the poor economy is evident in the compensation reported in this year’s survey. While salaries are not decreasing, the combined effects of all of the components of compensation — bonuses, raises, and benefits — results in an overall decline for practicing structural engineers; learn more at www.gostructural.com