The Datum Report

Occupation 2129 · Professional occupations

Engineering professionals n.e.c.

Half of full-time engineering professionals n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £48,776 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group perform a variety of professional engineering functions not elsewhere classified in minor group 212: Engineering professionals.

How people enter it

Chartered engineers 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

• researches into problem areas to advance basic knowledge, evaluate new theories and techniques and to solve specific problems
• establishes principles and techniques to improve the quality, durability and performance of materials such as textiles, glass, rubber, plastics, ceramics, metals and alloys
• designs new systems and equipment with regard to cost, market requirements and feasibility of manufacture
• devises and implements control systems to monitor operational efficiency and performance of system and materials
• prepares sketches, drawings and specifications showing materials to be used, construction and finishing methods and other details
• examines and advises on patent applications
• provides technical consultancy services

Also called

Acoustician (professional) · Food technologist · Metallurgist · Scientific consultant · Technical engineer · Technologist · Traffic engineer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for engineering professionals n.e.c., 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. 11 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 project managers and project engineers · Mechanical engineers (professional) · Production and process engineers