The Datum Report

Occupation 2127 · Professional occupations

Engineering project managers and project engineers

Half of full-time engineering project managers and project engineers in the UK earn more than £53,064 a year, and half earn less.

Engineering project managers and project engineers schedule, manage and oversee engineering projects for quality of work, timeliness and completion within budget, plan, design and specify materials and equipment for the project and create necessary technical drawings.

How people enter it

Engineering project managers and project engineers usually possess an accredited university degree. After qualifying, periods of appropriate training and experience are required before membership of a chartered engineering institution is attainable. Incorporated engineers possess an accredited university degree, BTEC/SQA award or an apprenticeship leading to an NVQ/SVQ at level 4. All routes are followed by periods of appropriate training and relevant experience.

What the work involves

• draws up budgets and timescales for new engineering projects based on clients’ requirements
• briefs project team, contractors and suppliers
• assembles information for invoicing at the end of projects
• plans work schedules for engineering projects based on prior discussion with client and contractors
• regularly inspects and monitors progress and quality of work, ensures legal requirements are met
• identifies defects in work and proposes corrections
• records, monitors and reports progress
• ensures that equipment, operation and maintenance comply with design specifications and safety standards

Also called

Contracts manager (manufacturing) · Project engineer · Project manager (manufacturing)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for engineering project managers and project engineers, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 8 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Aerospace engineers · Civil engineers · Electrical engineers · Electronics engineers (professional) · Engineering professionals n.e.c. · Mechanical engineers (professional) · Production and process engineers