Attracting responses from 621 engineers working across 12 different sectors, The Engineer's latest salary survey was carried out between December 2024 and January 2025.
Three quarters of respondents reported that their take home pay has increased in the past 12 months, with 44 per cent stating that they are happy with their overall pay levels and 55 per cent reporting that they are comfortable with their workload.
Despite these positives, the survey also found that average engineering salaries decline by £62K year-on-year, while 47 per cent of respondents said that they are actively considering looking for a new role, potentially as a result.
Manufacturing salaries
The survey heard from 116 respondents from the manufacturing sector specifically, with the majority of responses echoing the general feeling across the industry.
55 per cent of manufacturers said that they were happy in their current job, with 41 per cent stating that they felt 'valued' by their employer, and 38 per cent feeling that their senior management 'actively encourage' a work-life balance.
While 53 per cent of these respondents said that it was 'very likely' that they would be staying in the industry for the next five years, 69 per cent said they would consider transferring to a different engineering field, with renewables (56 per cent), aerospace (55 per cent) and the defence and security (44 per cent) sectors selected as the top alternatives.
The potential for a better salary (78 per cent), a new challenge (69 per cent) and a limit to the opportunities in their current roles (47 per cent) were named as the main reasons for switching from manufacturing in particular - though it is important to note that 63 per cent of manufacturing respondents said that they weren't considering a change of job at all.
More from Machinery
The results of this year's salary survey have also been fed into The Engineer's ever-popular salary bench-marking tool which you can use to to see how your salary stacks up against that of your industry peers.
The full interactive digital 2025 salary survey report can be accessed and read in full here.
