The Five Highest Paying Engineering Professions
The engineering domain is growing rapidly. It needs skilled workers to apply engineering principles in mathematical, scientific, technological, and social methodologies to design, build, and operate structures, instruments, systems, and processes.
Talented engineers find lots of opportunities for gratifying employment in different industries.
Paucity of Engineering Jobs
India has some of the best engineering colleges and the country is credited with giving the best engineering talent to the world. Still, many engineering graduates have difficulty in finding jobs. Very few of engineering graduates are successful in finding jobs related to their field while others are made to be content with other jobs.
Currently, more number of engineering graduates have a job preference for the defense, marine and banking sectors. Added to this, top IT organizations are recruiting only 6% of the engineering graduates.
Why IIT Engineers are revered as symbols of social status?
When IIT engineering graduates opt for careers other than engineering, it is looked upon as a loss for the nation and the government. IITs lead the pack with engineers trained in the most demanding fields are getting fat salaries among all college graduates in the nation.
Unlike other engineering college students IT Engineering Graduates do have an analytical aptitude and they are using the engineering concepts well in jobs. This concept is a major selling point for the engineering graduates and enhances their employability.
Top employers always look to acquire quality talent and this is where the top IIT graduates step into making the difference to the growth prospects of companies.
IIT graduates are fetching 137% higher remuneration package when compared to those of an average engineer.
The highest salary remuneration for a Computer Science Engineering Graduate may exceed Rs.80 lakh per annum. Top MNCs such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, and Microsoft line up for IIT Engineers, with a fabulous salary package of Rs.1 crore and above, whereas a software engineer at Apple is rewarded with a whopping salary of Rs.2 crore.
List of Highest Salaried Engineering Branches
It’s bit difficult to prepare the best engineering remuneration package as there are huge differences in career level, specializations, and the country of employment. The highest engineering salaried people in the world are from the Electrical Engineering stream. However, the largest number of jobs offered in India, every year, is seized by the Computer Science Engineering stream.
The break-up salaried details of highest-paid engineering majors are hereunder:
| Sl. No | Topmost Paying Engineering Branches | Expected Remuneration |
| 1. | Computer Science Engineering | Minimum Sal: Rs. 10-12 lakh p.a. and for a skilled individual it could touch Rs. 50 lakh p.a |
| 2. | Mechanical Engineering | At entry level: Rs. 2.65 lakh pay p.a and the highest salary one gets is to Rs. 5 Lakh p.a |
| 3. | Civil Engineering | Staring Pay: Rs. 3 Lakh to Rs. 5 Lakh p.a |
| 4. | Electrical Engineering | Average Pay: Rs.2 Lakh and the highest salary could go up to Rs. 4.5 p.a |
| 5. | Electronics & Communication Engineering | Minimum pay: Rs. 1.5 lakh and the max pay is Rs. 3.5 lakh p.a |
Computer Science Engineering
In India, Electronics manufacturing, R&D and Innovation sectors are extremely weak and are not in a position to provide sufficient employment opportunities to the engineers of chemical, electronics, textile, bio-medical, instrumentation, and aeronautical branches.
Expected Remuneration:
A significant chunk of jobs offered in India, every year, is going to the Computer Science Engineering Graduates.
In the last decade, the growth of this stream has been phenomenal. IT engineering graduates are employed by MNCs; the expected pay for freshers is in the range of Rs.2.4 lakhs-1 cr per annum. However, IITs draw a whopping salary of Rs.1 crore per annum when they are placed with big IT firms like Google, Twitter, Oracle and Facebook and so on.
Top-grade financial sector giants such as Meryl &Lynch, Moody’s, HSBC, Poor & Standard, City Bank etc. offer Rs.10-30 lakh per annum to those who are products of NITs, IITs, Manipal and BITS. The middle range MNCs such as Samsung, Mu Sigma Inc. offer Rs.6.5 lakh-Rs.8.5 lakh per annum to those who are graduated from government and other private engineering colleges.
Computer Engineers with internship experience and upgraded skills are more likely to get better salary packages. M.Tech in Computer Science places
candidates in high income bracket when compared to B.Tech qualified ones. The average remuneration of an M.Tech is Rs.7.8 lakh p.a, whereas Assistant Professors in universities draw a salary upto Rs.4.3 lakhs p.a.
The billions of electronic devices manufactured in every sector from aerospace to automobile require microprocessor control, which is software-driven. Apart from coding of these services and devices, CSE engineers are in great demand and the latter’s role is equally important in testing and life-time support or development of devices.
Mechanical Engineering:
India boasts of heavy-manufacturing industries like metal, steel, automobile and mining and forging. All these industries need a stable inflow of fresh engineering graduates. Public sector encompassing railways, shipyards, heavy-engineering, defense forces, mining, metro rail corporation, and national highways are the top employers for mechanical engineers.
Further, mechanical engineers have an important role to play in the IT sector to design and build ERP solutions as they are familiar with manufacturing and production processes. Mechatronics Engineers can take a plunge into R&D or the manufacturing sector of a manufacturing company at the end of B.Tech.
Expected remuneration:
The starting pay for mechanical engineers is in the income bracket of Rs.1.8 lakh-Rs.5 lakh p.a.
Civil Engineering:
There is a misconception that civil engineering field is not lucrative when compared to other fields.
All rail, road construction projects and water supply arrangements need site engineers, architects and supervisors and there are a plethora of job opportunities for civil engineers.
Expected Pay Package:
In India, the pay for civil engineers in the construction industry, at entry-level is Rs.3 lakh-Rs.5 lakh per annum. The latest industry researches point out that as the career progresses, the salary of a civil engineer goes up by 53% by the middle of career. Proficiency in “MS Project” is what an aspiring Civil Engineer needs to have.
Electrical Engineering:
It is a good career option for those who enjoy the thought of designing electrical equipment and power systems that are used in day-to-day life.
There is a wealth of good employment prospects in electricity boards, power plants, metro rails, state and center-run power sector organizations like NTPC, Railways, and Defence forces, SAIL, PGCIL, DRDO, ONGC and BHEL. There is a good employment potential in the manufacturing and aviation sectors too as there is an equal number of job opportunities for electronic, electrical and instrumentation engineers.
Expected Remuneration:
The starting salary package for electrical engineers is Rs.1.8 lakh-Rs.4.5 lakh per annum.
Electronics & Communication Engineering:
The aspiring Electronics and Communication Engineers can look for job opportunities in the telecom sector comprising BEL, BHEL, as well as in giant MNCS like Adobe, Motorola, and Adobe. Apart from this, Hitachi, Intel, Sony too offer attractive remuneration packages to well-deserving candidates.
With recent technological innovation, the scope for taking up employment in the electronics & communication engineering field is on the rise with the latest technologies like autonomous drone logistics, self-driving cars, robotics, smart energy systems and automation in industries.
Expected Remuneration:
Students who have an educational background in Electronics and Communication Engineering stand to be rewarded with an opening salary pack of 3.5-4.5 lakh per annum. Electronics students with skills in automation technologies, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), renewable energies, and mechatronics add more worth to their average pay scale.
Other Engineering Branches
There are other engineering branches such as Textile Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electronics & Instrumentation, Mechatronics Engineering and Aeronautical Engineering ,but have limited applicability and hence offer less number of jobs.
Although a large number of organizations are in need of engineers from the above-mentioned streams, the former does not take up campus placement drives. As such, students of these streams have no other option but are dependent on government jobs or go by the specific industry demands.
Conclusion
The job-aspiring engineering candidates need to have a long-term goal and set their eyes on gaining proficiency in current age skills such as Machine Learning and Data Science. Also, engineering graduates can help themselves through studying standard academic text books, developing aptitude and logical reasoning, as well as strengthening English communication skills.
A lot of colleges are offering short-duration courses to help engineering graduates hone their engineering skills. Students may take advantage of such courses as it helps job aspirants upgrade their skills. These are some of the important factors for grabbing the most rewarding career in terms of pay and job satisfaction.
