Why do people quit structural engineering? 

Pay level is not commensurate with stress level. There is not enough people put on jobs. And for those carrying technical work often have to learn or create a process to design something. For instance, engineers know concrete design. How to get the results from 2d finite elements to design check takes thinking. It's stressful not knowing exactly how to design something with a nearing deadline.

I am structural engineer with 7 years of experience in London, now takin my second MSc degree in specialized field just to perform better. What I can effort for my salary to deal with uni fees is a small room in 4th zone. My roommate is bus driver and makes more money than me. His room is the biggest in our flat, the difference is that I spent all my free time on learning and self development, he plays video games and in general enjoys his life. Really disappointing and at the end really regret the career choices. I feel like all other jobs, even those which don't require much qualifications pay more with time than engineering. Unskilled labours make more, it does not happen in any other industry, surgeon will never be paid less than lady who cleans the floor in hospital. This is not to show disrespect to that lady, it's just about reward for education and hard qualifications that we have.

One of the things I hated about my previous work was when they bidded for work and had to deliver presentations to clients, they would say they design for people and value people, yet back at the office they were heavily underpaying engineers and technicians.

3:55 Whoa. After I finished my MEng in Nottingham, I moved abroad. With less than 6 years of experience (and with PE license and recently passed the 16-hour SE exam), I am about to start a job in a few days that pays me the equivalent of 102k GBP per year. I do not live in a large city. Unless it's finance or corporate law, I think the UK economy is running on fumes at this point.

very true, structural engineers are underpaid while doing stressful work

It's stressful, fast paced and the liability is huge and for life.

Fantastic as always Dazz! I’m always saying this in the office.. we need to be pushing for better fees. If someone feels a day or two of our time and all the experience and knowledge is only worth £200-300 then we need to push back as an industry or we will forever be in a race to the bottom.

Another great video Dazz! It’s interesting that you have put this up as myself and a few other structural (and civil) engineers are asking if its worth it. I have noticed that the fees for Civil and Structural Design seem to be the bottom of the pecking order, yet the client is happy to pay more for basic planning drawings with no construction details or practical applications other than to get through planning. Keep up with the great content Dazz!

Hi Dazz, fellow structural engineer here with 12 years design experience. I couldn't agree more with your thoughts on typical issues with low fees/salaries in the design office. This was partly the reason why I set up my own company and now work for myself. When all the projects are rushed, there is no time for improving your efficiency in design i.e. making spreadsheets, drawing templates, dynamic blocks, researching better software or just discussing how to do things better which means you actually get the jobs done slower because you can't become really efficient at the work you are focussing on. This is also something I invest time in as well as making sure I take work on which is fairly paid which work together because you can get slightly more fee and turn it around quickly because you are well positioned to complete it efficiently. If I don't have much work then I spend time improving my skills or making spreadsheets/dynamic CAD blocks or doing some reading. I couldn't leave engineering though for another career whatever the salary because I really enjoy the work. At least now, if I get the fee wrong then it's my fault! Keep up with the videos they are great :)

Great to know this is a global "concern" from consultant structural engineer. In Hong Kong, the consultant structural engineers are usually under high pressure and take the highest responsibility, and the salary is not reflected well.

Exactly Right ON the point wish your highness all the BEST 💰🛡💎

Great video dazz. Same here in Philippines they don’t realize how important our role in construction industry.

Great video!!!

In my opinions before i watch the video : 1. Ridiculously low pay compared to responsibilities and work we do 2. Lack of training 3. Lack of appreciation for what we do and what we know 4. Too much stress and so many things expected from you to know. (design, repair, standards, materials, analysis, commercial, legal etc etc etc)

Excellent video. As a fellow structural engineer, I agree with most points you mentioned. We should learn something from the association of dentistry in the US/Canada. Minimum prices should be enforced on every firm by the engineering associations but they are toothless, and in a free market we are just running a race to the bottom, which I think we have reached as people have started leaving this industry even after getting a master/PhD. I myself plan to move on to real estate as they have figured out the business much better.

Thank you sir.

Great channel 👏

Thank you that you talked about this problem because the responsabilite of structural engineer in his work is like medicine or most because the structural engineer deal with many people. Thanks a lot for explanation.

In Panama civil engineers do structural designs, the job is underpaid when is considered the legal responsabilities, and time involved in do Ing the calculations and drawings (in big projects is feasible to hire a drawing technitian.

Absolutely, spot on. Also, the worse the engineer is, the quicker he/ she will do it (as they won't even know, what questions to ask or what to check, they would assume quickly and miss a 100 things) and hence, be more profitable. At the end of the day, if something even does go wrong, the insurance takes care of the liability. The more profitable employee is promoted and the hard-working, diligent, thorough engineer is looked upon as the profit eating burden on the company. The smarter you are, either go on your own, or do something else.

I can only address with respect to structural engineering. Structural engineering is at the bottom of the food chain. The market dictates the fees and there is so much competition because everybody wants to own their own structural engineering firm that clients can get by offering small fees, if your company won't take the job then another company will. The amount of work is also dictated by the client as well as the deadlines. And the industry doesn't pay more if the client changes things and you have to do it over, or if the contractor makes mistakes and you have to spend time to fix them. So overall there is a lot of pressure and the work/life balance suffers. I've worked a lot of overtime that I've never been paid for, and I've missed vacation after vacation because I had deadlines and couldn't take time off from work. These days universities are promoting engineering so more and more people are going into engineering, which keeps salaries low and ultimately keeps fees low. Consider this- the real estate agent that advertises and sells the building makes about 9 times as much as the engineering company that designs the building and deals with the contractor during construction.

The only questions are 1) how does a client know a 'good engineering' firm. Its not clear and the finances are not in our favor. Spend a lot of money early to save money later MAYBE? (even good firms make mistakes and every priject is different. some projects are destined to fail financially) Or be cheap now and pay a lot in change orders but sue the engineer and get out before it matters. Most developers choose the latter. 2) race to the bottom with fees and engineers taking on jobs they are not qualified for.

I really enjoyed working with some talented guys in the previous job. It was just the stress put me off especially with the endless overtime which was 99% time free for the company. I thought it was a leaning curve so…but soon I found that actually I was not leaning anything from it. How could you possibly absorb design skills from every design was chased and no or little checking done by the experienced senior engineers? Companies should really consider their long term development rather just exploit your employees. Looking back I believe I’ve made a right choice.

Finally! Someone talk about this.

The stress that comes with it

I’m thinking of joining a design office when I graduate in the next couple of months with the low fees and high rents in London, I’m second guessing if it is worth it. I don’t wanna work for 10 to 20 years and have nothing to show for it.

Same in the US. Our work is safety but turns into deadlines.

structures projects are often localised in scope ( i.e 1 building or bridge)... so budget is also heavily constrained, especially in the private sector. Structural engineers are also normally subbed under an Architect... so the slice of the already small pie is cut down further from the developers to architects then to structural engineers. Heck, I have seen mechanical engineers given more priority over structures! The moral of the story is, you want to be as close to the money as possible. If you are down at the bottom of the chain, you will be diluted to obscurity. So if you really want to be a civil engineer, go with transport. That way you get the money directly from the source (govt) and have scale in the scope with easier repeatable designs for many miles... my 2 cents

You said it mate.Its nearly impossible to leave the work at office,it's always playing in your mind specially refurb jobs where you don't have full information about existing structure and on jobs where the Architect wants long spans with a deep services zone below soffit.

In the Netherlands we have a shortage for structural engineers. Not much students go that way afraid of maths and numbers I ges. I good thing for me there would be always enough work and chances to grow and maybe the salaries will go up some day because of the shortage. Salary seems to be slighty higher looking at a senior structural engineer with 10 years of experience that is between (net) 3500 euros or (net) 4900 euros a month (1 GBP = 1.16 EURO) in the Netherlands. To ad to it... thanks for your words. I'll take them with me as a beginner.

As a data point, I started as a civil engng grad in 2000 on £20k/yr. I moved away from design work in 2003 as I found it so crushingly dull and moved in to project delivery which was much more dynamic and had a better mix of detail work and human interaction. Engrs are paid less compared to some professions because we tend to sit as a capex cost rather than an accountant say who though themselves are a legal compliance cost can actively 'save' money, rather like the software engr who can save cost by automating workflow and reducing headcount. I suspect too that software has stolen a lot of the civil or structural engineer's thunder when it comes to salary negotiation - software has diminished the value of a design engineer to glorified software jockey....this is especially true I think given that civil design is typically in the elastic, small strain, small deformation range and so more exotic higher order effects that software does not model well and undergrads are not normally taught are neglected. You have to ask if the traditional consulting engineer is outdated and if the one stop shop design-build contractor isn't the more sustainable arrangement - at least they can trade off the design costs to the much larger construction cost and generate both construction savings through buildability and develop proprietary knowledge in both design and assembly technique.

Same issue in the US. Salary is better but it's getting harder to make money. I'm working part-time and looking for side job. I'm wondering what platform to use or how your firm go out looking for projects?

Most of the work engineers do is not seen with the naked eye to the masses so the Architect and the Contractor ends up getting a lot of credit and in turn a nicer fee. The truth is that the engineers can add thousands or take away thousands of dollars from the total construction cost (not to mention time to construct) but instead of getting a nicer fee, they would hear something like "Hey, you did a good job and save us a lot of money .... I want you use again on another job" which is good to hear, but it would be nice if a percentage of that savings when to the engineer.

I want to be an engineer bcoz i want to be a contractor someday so i’m not gonna complain about salary. Trading takes care of the monetary part

Interesting video. I'm a practicing engineer in Southern California specializing in single family residences since 1995 and have been working for myself since 2008. I can see your point in fees being squeezed, but perhaps the focus should be more on the final product (i.e. your drawings.) In the 27 years I've been doing this, I find most engineering firms (at least here in the US) separate the responsibilities of the engineer that is doing the calculations and the cad operator that is doing the drawings to save on overhead. To me, this is completely backwards since it's the engineer that knows exactly what should be on the drawings to convey the design to the contractor. Since working for myself in 2008, I've chosen to do everything, the calculations, the drawings and even the invoicing and contract writing. I focus mainly on doing quality drawings since that is what my reputation is built from, not the complexity of the calculations performed. Once you get a great reputation that exceeds that of your colleagues, you will be able to charge more for your services and the poor fees become a thing of the past. With that said, I'm not sure how it works in the UK, but the thing that would make me quit engineering now would be the Building and Safety Departments. Here in Southern California, they are very strict with the comments from plan check engineers quite extensive, usually just to justify their plan check fee they charge the client. Many time, the additional calculations they ask for do not change anything on the drawings leading to hours of extra work for no reason.

Hi Dazz. You are very right - the problem is the Construction Industry in general - here in the UK we are obsessed with a race to the bottom. Everyone undercuts everyone else, until we end up with a tiny fee for the experience and value that we bring to the project. This is massively not helped by the Institution that we are forced to belong to (to be Chartered Engineers) - they should be helping us raise the profile of our role so that Clients value what we can offer - instead they are manically obsessed with climate change and sustainability, which is now officially classed as of equal importance to structural safety! As a result, the UK public generally views an 'Engineer' as someone who does things like mend washing machines or fixes the car. They see us as a unavoidable cost overhead, rather than a valued advisor. But don't despair - I am now 39 years into the job and am researching food banks in our area!

Engineers supercharge your practical engineering knowledge here 💯💯🚀

I was surprised that in the UK a structural engineer only makes a structural analysis + a few simple sketches. The rest is the responsibility of a technician. A structural engineer in Sweden/Germany/Finland/Russia also develops a 3D model (Revit, Tekla, Advance Steel), blueprints and MTO schedules in addition to FEA. Some of them often use the special tools like Dynamo or C# to implement the design process effectively. Therefore for instance in Russia S.Engineer's salaries are almost the highest in a construction industry.

9:20 , the fee might be ok compared to total project cost. However, for the larger companies the overheads are insane. The number of non-chargeable employees and general high expense on events etc. is crazy. The engineers are left to suffer the consequences of this model.

Our salary should be the same as a surgeon

There's a really bad pay to effort ratio in the field. Structural engineers are one of the lowest paid in the civil engineering (or even broad engineering) spectrum. However, structural engineering demands more technical knowledge and higher stress level. It is often the structural engineers doing overtime and the other civils leaving the office on the dot. Going back to the issue about pay... due to the numerous structural systems and materials out there... there is a lot more knowledge to accumulate before you progress your career. In the roading space, it doesn't take long after you graduate to rise the ranks.

OMG! This reminds me of what I went through. I did civil engineering. One of the units I did was structural engineering and I really enjoyed that. That was the best unit. I think I’m a structural engineer at heart. I totally agree with you, people do not understand how important structural engineer’s work actually is. It makes the designers work a reality. And also totally agree how low the salaries are. Its actually shameful, modern day slavery, I personally feel these big companies (across the board in construction) are simply too greedy. If your company is taking on a lot of jobs and still making a loss, they need to question their maths. I think you did the right thing coming to a smaller company. You actually learn much more and more easy to then setup your own once you learn the ropes in that sector or niche. When I first started working I was once part of a big company working as a architectural technician. I was doing a lot of CAD work. They promised my salary will go up, move to managerial roles etc. It never happened. Then one day I bumped into a small book in our office library “how to do a planning application”. It was a step by step guide. I copied the whole book (hell I’m gone buy it on such a low salary), read the whole thing. Pluck up the courage to do (what my then managers were bragging about every month) my own full planning permission. Lol I couldn’t believe it. I got it approved and the local planners treated me like some planning don. I left and never looked back. Compared to what I was getting, I now make more but working half the time, basically double. In fact prior to starting with the bigger company I worked with a very small company for one year. Only after I left the small company and went through what I did with the big company I realised I learnt 10 times more in the smaller company as they give you more responsibility of the overall project. With the big company I was like a CAD monkey. I do a lot of loft conversions now. I use local engineers to get my loft beams calculated. But really now thinking as I have civil/engineering qualification and have a good level of understanding of simple beams (and lofts are usually simple) thinking of learning this aspect and then I can offer this service too. Just not sure how to do this now. Let me know if there is a shortcut way or course (already having a civil engineering degree) that I can do to carry out simple typical beam calculation for typical two storey houses.

Yes.The engg efforts put into by a structural engineer don't go with the fees he receives.But again it is a matter of choice.Structural engineers need to learn from other civil engineering domains like say interior designers,the way they market.

A structural engineer is an architecture shadow.

Structural engineering is under valued. Too many unqualified providing low quality services. I partly blame the engineers themselves for working for such low salaries. If you are not paid enough don’t do it.

Life is too short to be in this profession which is overworked and underpaid. The human body isnt made to deal with chronic lack of sleep, chronic stress and long hours in a sedentary job. This is why people talk about depression because for money and a job title you are abusing your body, mind and soul.

too many responsibilities and not enough pay

travel nurses make a shit ton of money because nursing is always in heavy demand and there is high attrition. nurses are not undercut by india and the philippines

100%. This is the same in Australia. I have 10 years experience and honest advice to students is to go find another career. The generation before we us has set up the industry to fail.

Don't worry you we a half billion people in India trying to be one.

Great to know about the things some engineers never talk about! I'm moving to London for my Msc. in Structural engineering what things should I consider to become a good structural engineer and how is the job market for international students like is it very difficult to get sponsored graduate jobs having no prior experience ?? Please help me out!

Everything that people care about now is profit. I think changing the industry requires a big sacrifice. A large building collapsing due to bad design with low fees and short design time can change people's minds about engineers. May be.

Civil engineering was once an amazing profession that creates art which is why i was interested in it. Now i realize its just a market where 1. contracts are given to the cheapest bidders 2. companies are underpaying their employees 3. terrible work-life balance 4. an unstable market with projects being cancelled or slowed down due to any economic crises. 5. Once you specialize in a field in this industry, you are stuck with it forever so you feel trapped. Younger graduates have it worse because companies are no longer willing to invest in training them while older engineers have contacts that can help them stay afloat if needed. I regret going 4 years of university only to end up working as a modern day slave. I am trying to work things out but the market is very dry in my country. I would appreciate if anyone has some kind of tips or practical civil courses (not theory) for a recent grad so i can learn some valuable skillsets until the crisis passes.

I am going to pursue MS in Civil Structural Engineering @ Fall 2022 at University of Illinois Chicago, Planning to do MBA after getting 4 years of experience in good firms and also PE license. I think my decision is good 😊

On fees, its really just a shitty loop. If you don't quote low, you don't get the job, if you don't get the job, you are out of business so you have to quote low to stay in business and civil engineers end up with shitty fees. Yeah its a free market economy but it is killing the industry. We have a scale of fees, lets get it up.

Because no one hire me :)

Glorified slavery

That's because construction workers arn't effective anymore. We need to replace them with ROBOTS, this will make the budget way higher and pay for engineers will also rise.