Salary Survey Results
Dateline: 11/03/98Salary Survey
The salary survey is an attempt to gather salary information in the composites industry. If you would like to contribute, please fill out a submission form. All entries are completely anonymous. The more data I receive, the more types of analyses I can show.
As of 11/03/98, 77 people have responded to the survey: 68 from the U.S. and nine from other countries. All salaries are shown in U.S. dollars. For salaries submitted in other currencies, I converted them using the exchange rate published in the Wall Street Journal on the day I entered the data into the spreadsheet.
The average salary of all entries is $55,316; the U.S. average is $55,727. Because of the small number of international responses, the scatter is too large to give a meaningful average.
Experience
With fewer than 100 responses, the salary versus experience curve is the only one which is beginning to show some trends. The data show a gradual increase in salary with years of experience, with a levelling out around 15 or 20 years. The scatter is smallest at less than five years. Most international salaries are much lower than in the U.S. The $180,000 salary belongs to an engineering manager at a UK motor sports company.
Education
There does not seem to be much correlation between education and salary, especially among Bachelors and Masters degrees. If anything, Doctorates and Postdocs have slightly lower salaries, but there are really too few responses to draw a conclusion.
Engineers
Of the 67 people who submitted forms, 45 identified themselves as engineers or engineering managers. Only two of those 45 are from outside the U.S. The average salary for all engineers is $58,140; the average for U.S. engineers $55,856. (Without the $180K salary, the average for all engineers is $55,519.)
The average salary for engineers is a bit higher than the average for all job categories. Removing engineering managers from the engineers category has a negligible impact on the results--manager salaries fall right in the middle of the range.
Other Results
As I receive more survey responses, I will add the data to the existing graphs, and I will also add charts showing the effects of company size, location, etc.
One thing I am looking for is a better data plotting program (I'm using Excel right now), something inexpensive. If you have any suggestions, send them to me at composite@aboutguide.com.
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