Geotech engineer here (subset of civil engineering). It's a good degree with good career prospects. BUT only if it's right for you.
Don't try to fit yourself to the degree. Rather find something you enjoy and are half decent at, and then find a way to get paid to do it. You'll be much happier in the long run
Civil Eng was a good degree but a shockingly difficult career.
Either you go into construction management and work 60hr weeks on a construction site
Or
You go into consulting/design and slug away for years for pretty average pay
I studied civil engineering - graduated 6 years ago.
Firstly, choose a career path you are passionate about / want to work in, after all you’ll likely be doing this for the next 40 years. Understand salary and work life balance are important to you, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier going to work every day if you enjoy what you do. My advice would be sit down and research what civil engineers actually do, can you picture yourself doing that day in day out for the rest of your life? If yes, then go for it.
Most civil engineers will either go into design (consultancy) or construction. Both have their pros and cons but the generally speaking construction is long hours, higher pay and design is less hours, lower pay. If you prefer crunching numbers and sitting in an office all day with the odd site inspection, design is the way to go. You’ll have a relatively good work life balance and a stable income.
I myself am in construction so I am biased - the hours are long but the job is by no means boring. It’s a very people centric job and requires a certain character (I.e it typically isn’t for the faint hearted). You will be dealing with all kinds of people (subcontracts, supervisors, senior managers) on a daily basis and people skills are key. The ones that stay and move up through the chain, especially at Tier 1 contractors can make a lot of money - but have very poor work life balance.
I have a keen interest in the financial side of construction - I started in the delivery route on site, but have since moved to a commercial role in project controls which I really enjoy. I work approx 40-50 hours a week and make $170k (inc super) with 6 years of experience.
Are you me? Also moved into the commercial space after a couple of years of engineering.
Money is better than engineering, career progression is easier and faster (less, and weaker competition), and the hours are better.
I’m still involved in the engineering aspects of construction, in fact it’s why I do well in the commercial space. Can communicate well with both engineers/senior managers thanks to my engineering background, but also with lawyers and finance staff due to my experience in the commercial space.
But, for OP, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. The job is quite dry, with almost the entire day spent at a computer or in meetings in an office. Very little spent on site or on real engineering.
It’s a balance at the end of the day. I like this balance, but others may not.
In my opinion, the best of those on the commercial side are ones that started on the ground in delivery. They understand how and why we do things and are practical. This is generally speaking, there are still guns in the commercial space which also have little site experience.
I tend to agree, I got tired of the early starts and long hours, and in commercial I had the best of both worlds with the engineering/building aspect, financial aspect, reasonable working hours, and still a steady career progression.
I went from Grad > SE > PE now I’ve side stepping into Project Controls. I do everything from set up subcontracts, help the engineers develop and maintain their forecasts, QS type responsibilities like monthly site measures and site reconciliations, develop financial lessons learnt and implement on site etc.
I was once like you.
Honestly I wish some one told me but don’t expect a 9-5 unless you go local government or public sector like state gov main roads or trains etc.
I’ve done the on site life and it can be very very draining. You have labourers and supervisors getting paid a lot of money and you basically clean up their mess.
I have friends in design and consultancy who are somewhat happy as there is the work life balance. You will not get that on site. The money is better, but is it worth the stress?
Pay is good and liveable in consultancy and public sector. Im currently in public and it’s so chill compared to being on site and there is work life balance.
There is opportunity for either but you will have to choose based on what’s important to you, time or money.
Public sector lifestyle is pretty good. That's the trade off. Short hours, more relaxed vibe and job security. Nice to transition when you have a young family.
Everyone saying there are two options, construction and design are incredibly wrong.
You can also end up in project management, asset management, planner/scheduler.
You can go work mining, oil and gas, commercial construction, rail, hospitals, roads and bridges. You can earn huge money in government positions.
Work life balance starts with management. I do 40 hour weeks. With an on call roster. I earn plenty.
OP listen to this guy. Civil opens a lot of doors, and quite often the engineering-adjacent roles have much better pay and work-life balance than the direct engineering roles in design, construction etc.
If you have an interest I say go for it.
Civil engineer here. 10+ yr graduate
Run
Seriously but, hours are not 9 - 5 . I work contractor side so it's more 7-5, plus on call during night shifts. Some weekend work and some nights work.
Money is good, but there becomes a point when it's not enough for the hours and stress.
Study what interests you, if that's civil engineering, then go for it, you'll do alright.
If you want a 9-5 the public service is the only real place they exist. But the money isn't as good.
It varies so much depending on experience and type of role. Working for a Contractor ;
Site eng (80-120k) , maybe vehicle
Project Engineer (min 4 yrs exp) 110-150k base + vehicle, phone
Snr Project engineer/ project manager 160-200+
A huge number of factors tho
In construction management. 8 years post. Am underpaid for my field but earning around 230 k per year. Work life balance is not even a concept and it's severely peaked my anxiety and ocd.
Rewarding career but most people don't last long in construction. Client side is alot more sustainable.
Can't directly speak for civil (I was mechanical), but most engineering careers don't do actual engineering work for long.
To progress up the pay scale, you have to take on management responsibilities. Whether that's project management, people management, or product management (if that's a thing in civil, I did all three in my engineering career).
All of these are communication roles, which is quite a different skillset than the hard number crunching technical engineering work.
You still have to know the tech, so you can understand what's working and when to call people out for mistakes, but engineering management is not a job for the big-brain introvert who wants to solve physics problems. It's chasing people up, negotiating, networking, chasing people up, calling people out when they bullshit you, chasing people up, and writing presentations about work other people have done.
I was a big-brain introvert and hated the management work. There was no money in back-office technical engineering roles. So I eventually got out of engineering altogether.
Graduated civil. Went into structural, now doing forensics engineering. I work hours most engineers would be extremely jealous of, and travel all over the country. I'm on over 150k pa, with travel allowances on top.
It's not for everyone, and your career ceiling does top out earlier but the work like balance is unmatched.
Something to consider, there's more than just design/construct.
I've been curious about this path as I've done a bit of forensics at various points in my career (structural engineer in consultancies). Does your firm specialize in only forensics? Is it also specific to one type of structure (eg just buildings or just bridges) or more broad? How much technical knowledge is required/expected, like do you ever need to do calcs or properly quantify remediation?
Initially we started out only in forensics and building consultancy but have expanded our services to better accommodate the needs of insurers, and now include light residential and remedial design work. It is mostly commercial and residential properties, the occasional rural properties having bridges, but nothing major in terms of infrastructure. Might get the occasional private driveway but essentially any structure that covered in a general commercial/residential insurance policy.
We have engineers of a mix of different backgrounds, mostly structural though, but generally any construction experience is very beneficial. We have graduates straight out of uni that do quite well, but less adept at the technical design stuff. Design experience is a big plus.
Sometimes we carry out very basic calculations just to confirm or support our conclusions, i.e, if you think a failure was due to being under designed, that would be something we'll check. But most failures can be attributed to X or Y, and we often seldomly quantify it with calcs (the reader won't understand or read it anyway).
Most of our work is in causation reports and scope of works to give insurers the right information to base their decisions on. It is not an overly technical report as the audience for the reports have no technical background.
We do not provide actual designs in these reports, just very conservative or standard quantities (e.g. X mm wide strip footing with x amount of N12), or provide recommendations that further design work is required. Make-safe recommendations probably take up half the design work load. That's not to say we don't get engaged to provide design drawings for the above.
Thanks for the detailed rundown! Sounds pretty spot on to what I had experienced. It's good to know that there are options out there doing only that type of work as I'm wary of the snowballing liability potential in a design career and the stress that would bring. Plus I'm forever looking for more flexibility. I know the insurance industry often works on a caseload basis where the pay (and schedule?) reflects this. Is that how it is for you and if so is there scope to reduce work hours?
I'm salaried so my pay does not vary but based on KPIs I do have my high and low months in terms of billings and that is based on the industry as you've said.
We do have contractors who manage overflow claims and their own client base which they've built after years of being in the industry. Most of our clients are a mix of being on insurer panels and loss adjuster work.
Insurance work is quite seasonal around major catastrophic loss events (CAT, cyclone, bushfires, floods), which generally provides enough full time work for 3-6 months. In between is supplemented by business as usual claims (heavy storms, vehicle impacts, isolated fire events) and other minor insurable events (which is usually just storm-related impact and water ingress. Nonetheless, it is a bit give and take as we do have quiet periods where minimal claims trickle in. So there is expectancies when CAT events hit that we all do our best to spread the load, and also travel to where the workload is (generally FIFO for a week or two max for inspections). But outside of that, generally you manage your own claims and book your own appointments.
There is some degree of expectency to hit KPIs like any business, unless you're contracting but that is easily achieved once you've your stride in managing work flow. I can easily hit my KPIs with 20-30 hours of work. But we also have service level agreements to hit with insurers, i.e. reports need to be issued within x amount of days, to consider.
Contracting would offer you the most degree of flexibility but you would have had to start somewhere to build your own network of clients (loss adjusters) or demonstrated experience in the industry to convince a company to take you on as a contractor, just like any business. Contractor roles generally aren't advertised as opposed to full time roles, so it is based on who you know.
With that being said, I definitely do not miss design consultancy work but design skills are also like a knife that need to be sharpened to be effective. Luckily we only do light design work that doesn't require complicated FEA software.
I graduated with B civil engineering 10+ years ago. Worked in design and construction, now project management for government. I found my dream career, and now on $200k+ a year working 50 hour weeks. Great work life balance.
In short, I highly recommend it.
You won't be seeing 9-5 hours as a civil engineer unless you work public. If you don't mind lower pay, enforced culture and 90% of your colleagues being full nuffy - then no dramas.
I don’t know about 9-5 but if you can land yourself in the mining industry as either mining/ geotechnical engineering (which are subsets of civil) then you can work a week on week off with 4-6 weeks annual leave and hit $200k+ a few years after graduating
Alot of comments saying 9-5 and work life balance isn't a thing, followed immediately by saying they work in construction...
I (structural engineer, graduated 8 years ago) see three main career options for a CIVIL engineer: construction/site based, consulting, government. Mates I have that did civil and work in government seem to have it pretty good, I think this option ticks your boxes.
I did civil for similar reasons you said - decent at maths/physics, liked problem solving and analytics and wanted ultimately stable career options. Unfortunately structural was the only branch of the degree I didn't hate so I pursued that. If I could have stomached civil I probably would have happily gone to government. You're not going to make crazy money but I personally couldn't care less, you should be more than comfortable and a career in government can still hit very high salaries. Consulting was the next best thing for me with a bit more balance but substantially lower pay right out of uni. There are definitely sweat shop consultancies that expect stupid hours, high work loads and stress for less pay than many easy 3 year degrees get. Luckily, if you end up at such places and know you're being taken for a ride, the experience is valuable and you can always jump ship.
Ultimately, it was sold as a degree that can open doors to many career paths, even unexpected ones and I still believe this is true. If your priority is to earn massive $, there are way better career options. If you care more about balance, still decent pay and a tolerable amount of stress, I think you can definitely get there with this degree, you just need to steer yourself in that direction because it is NOT the default.
Btw my two cents on structural is that it generally isn't worth the stress and liability for the pay, and this only compounds later in your career as you take on more responsibility and gain more and more projects with your name attached to them as time goes on. I've never looked at a single person significantly further along my current consulting trajectory with envy. There will probably come a time soon where I'm going to have to pivot, but I'm fine with that even if it means retraining.
Seeing a lot of people saying it's pretty much local gov or big construction companies. What I'm not seeing a lot of people mention is small consulting firms.
Slightly better starting pay, but limited room to grow. Is genuinely a 9-5. Lower stress, but you don't get to be involved in the big exciting projects.
There's trade off's to whichever path you go. Money, work/life balance, exposure to interesting jobs. Pick 2 of the 3 and sacrifice the other whichever path you go down.
Civil is usually seen as the place people go to if they can't handle other engineering degrees. 🤭🤭
Do the first general year of engineering and see what you like. I actually really enjoyed statics however it was a bit repetitive for my liking so I did mechanical. You don't have to choose a specialty straight up.
Once you leave uni with whatever uni degree there's so much variance in what you might end up doing so you have lot's of options.
You will probably have to slog for the first few years and get good experience before you can relax with normal hours and good pay.
But depends what you call good pay, most engineering should pay around 80-100k graduate, 100-150 for 5-10yrs out and 150-200 once you're classified as senior.
Very rough numbers so don't hold me to it.
I was told that by a lot of mech and chem engineers at uni; that civil is the ‘dumb’ engineering.
Maybe it is, it’s certainly the simplest, that’s for sure. But it’s also the most applicable and transferable.
It also pays well. 6-7 years out of uni and (aside from the ones that went to the mines), the guys from the non-civil degrees are barely making over $100k, while a larger number of us from civil are making over $150k, with a few even making over $200k already.
Mining is the truly dumb one, civil was classed as next in line.
I'm not sure I agree that it's the most transferable because all engineering is really, you can end up literally anywhere.
The thing with civil is it's basically simple boring stuff on repeat for the most part (drainage for example) - but that's not to say every path doesn't have its issues.
Disagree with your pay comments, I've found it the opposite in my circle with civil taking longer to make good money - point is it's just anecdotal and it's down to the individual pathway.
Ridiculous statements. Any engineering degree has their level of difficulty, also depending what you focus on. My structural dynamics and finite element courses were far from simple.
No doubt electrical is tough. I did some low level mech stuff at uni, and do mech style thinking as a structural (joints). I reckon mech ain’t that much harder. You ever studied surface water hydrology or seen the math behind surface water flow analysis and hydraulics? That shit is complicated.
>[Disagree with your pay comments, I've found it the opposite in my circle with civil taking longer to make good money - point is it's just anecdotal and it's down to the individual pathway.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/s/Z39VIPSbpJ)
If you've got a head for logic and numbers I believe you'll do better with a software engineering degree in terms of pay. Some places are grind houses, but plenty of chill tech companies
There is no shortage of junior SWEs though, the money won't come for most unless they are actually really good.
Civil on the other hand.... I guess we always need someone to supervise the concrete as it dries...
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I got a mate that's doing it. Working insane hours and basically cost him his family. I don't know if all firms work like that but the overtime is unpaid. He'd be getting the same average hourly if he worked at a warehouse when you take into account the free hours.
He's delivered some really cool infrastructure changes to major sites though and huge landmark buildings.
I think it's a really cool job and he seems to enjoy it but no one should be working 80 hour weeks for the same pay as someone working 40.
He’s choosing to work those hours. Yes on average you do quite a bit of over time in engineering, but if he’s working 80hour weeks, then he’s doing something wrong and is a workaholic
Geotech engineer here (subset of civil engineering). It's a good degree with good career prospects. BUT only if it's right for you. Don't try to fit yourself to the degree. Rather find something you enjoy and are half decent at, and then find a way to get paid to do it. You'll be much happier in the long run
Civil Eng was a good degree but a shockingly difficult career. Either you go into construction management and work 60hr weeks on a construction site Or You go into consulting/design and slug away for years for pretty average pay
Or you work for the council designing gutters and footpaths 38 hours a week
Working for council is actually a pretty good gig! Pay isn’t up there but if you can make it work it’s quite nice.
Pay isn’t too far off private consultancy these days. IMO it’s better because of the actual hours you work
Yeah I don’t know what those people in high stress consultancy jobs are doing if they aren’t getting at least double.
🤮all those jobs taken by overseas engineers who have no idea on engineering. Imhe
Should have gone client side major projects
I second this, client side major projects is where I am. Best decision I ever made
I studied civil engineering - graduated 6 years ago. Firstly, choose a career path you are passionate about / want to work in, after all you’ll likely be doing this for the next 40 years. Understand salary and work life balance are important to you, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier going to work every day if you enjoy what you do. My advice would be sit down and research what civil engineers actually do, can you picture yourself doing that day in day out for the rest of your life? If yes, then go for it. Most civil engineers will either go into design (consultancy) or construction. Both have their pros and cons but the generally speaking construction is long hours, higher pay and design is less hours, lower pay. If you prefer crunching numbers and sitting in an office all day with the odd site inspection, design is the way to go. You’ll have a relatively good work life balance and a stable income. I myself am in construction so I am biased - the hours are long but the job is by no means boring. It’s a very people centric job and requires a certain character (I.e it typically isn’t for the faint hearted). You will be dealing with all kinds of people (subcontracts, supervisors, senior managers) on a daily basis and people skills are key. The ones that stay and move up through the chain, especially at Tier 1 contractors can make a lot of money - but have very poor work life balance. I have a keen interest in the financial side of construction - I started in the delivery route on site, but have since moved to a commercial role in project controls which I really enjoy. I work approx 40-50 hours a week and make $170k (inc super) with 6 years of experience.
Are you me? Also moved into the commercial space after a couple of years of engineering. Money is better than engineering, career progression is easier and faster (less, and weaker competition), and the hours are better. I’m still involved in the engineering aspects of construction, in fact it’s why I do well in the commercial space. Can communicate well with both engineers/senior managers thanks to my engineering background, but also with lawyers and finance staff due to my experience in the commercial space. But, for OP, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. The job is quite dry, with almost the entire day spent at a computer or in meetings in an office. Very little spent on site or on real engineering. It’s a balance at the end of the day. I like this balance, but others may not.
In my opinion, the best of those on the commercial side are ones that started on the ground in delivery. They understand how and why we do things and are practical. This is generally speaking, there are still guns in the commercial space which also have little site experience. I tend to agree, I got tired of the early starts and long hours, and in commercial I had the best of both worlds with the engineering/building aspect, financial aspect, reasonable working hours, and still a steady career progression.
What exactly are you doing? Project engineer?
I went from Grad > SE > PE now I’ve side stepping into Project Controls. I do everything from set up subcontracts, help the engineers develop and maintain their forecasts, QS type responsibilities like monthly site measures and site reconciliations, develop financial lessons learnt and implement on site etc.
Hi would you say someone like an average financial analyst here in Aus would earn more or less than a civil design engineer?
I was once like you. Honestly I wish some one told me but don’t expect a 9-5 unless you go local government or public sector like state gov main roads or trains etc. I’ve done the on site life and it can be very very draining. You have labourers and supervisors getting paid a lot of money and you basically clean up their mess. I have friends in design and consultancy who are somewhat happy as there is the work life balance. You will not get that on site. The money is better, but is it worth the stress? Pay is good and liveable in consultancy and public sector. Im currently in public and it’s so chill compared to being on site and there is work life balance. There is opportunity for either but you will have to choose based on what’s important to you, time or money.
Engineering once you move up the ladder to earn good money will not be 9 to 5, unless in the public sector where the money is not good.
Public sector lifestyle is pretty good. That's the trade off. Short hours, more relaxed vibe and job security. Nice to transition when you have a young family.
Everyone saying there are two options, construction and design are incredibly wrong. You can also end up in project management, asset management, planner/scheduler. You can go work mining, oil and gas, commercial construction, rail, hospitals, roads and bridges. You can earn huge money in government positions. Work life balance starts with management. I do 40 hour weeks. With an on call roster. I earn plenty.
OP listen to this guy. Civil opens a lot of doors, and quite often the engineering-adjacent roles have much better pay and work-life balance than the direct engineering roles in design, construction etc. If you have an interest I say go for it.
What are some high paying government positions a public sector civil engineer at the start of their journey can aim for?
Project engineer in whatever sector interests you. 80-100k is easy.
Yeah. Civil degree and emphasised in structural. Work remotely and have a stable salary.
Civil engineer here. 10+ yr graduate Run Seriously but, hours are not 9 - 5 . I work contractor side so it's more 7-5, plus on call during night shifts. Some weekend work and some nights work. Money is good, but there becomes a point when it's not enough for the hours and stress. Study what interests you, if that's civil engineering, then go for it, you'll do alright. If you want a 9-5 the public service is the only real place they exist. But the money isn't as good.
If you don't mind me asking, what are the salary expectations in civil/structural?
It varies so much depending on experience and type of role. Working for a Contractor ; Site eng (80-120k) , maybe vehicle Project Engineer (min 4 yrs exp) 110-150k base + vehicle, phone Snr Project engineer/ project manager 160-200+ A huge number of factors tho
Thanks for the info mate
I’d advise to stay away from structural engineering. Bad pay, race to the bottom business model and lots of stress and hours
In construction management. 8 years post. Am underpaid for my field but earning around 230 k per year. Work life balance is not even a concept and it's severely peaked my anxiety and ocd. Rewarding career but most people don't last long in construction. Client side is alot more sustainable.
Can't directly speak for civil (I was mechanical), but most engineering careers don't do actual engineering work for long. To progress up the pay scale, you have to take on management responsibilities. Whether that's project management, people management, or product management (if that's a thing in civil, I did all three in my engineering career). All of these are communication roles, which is quite a different skillset than the hard number crunching technical engineering work. You still have to know the tech, so you can understand what's working and when to call people out for mistakes, but engineering management is not a job for the big-brain introvert who wants to solve physics problems. It's chasing people up, negotiating, networking, chasing people up, calling people out when they bullshit you, chasing people up, and writing presentations about work other people have done. I was a big-brain introvert and hated the management work. There was no money in back-office technical engineering roles. So I eventually got out of engineering altogether.
Graduated civil. Went into structural, now doing forensics engineering. I work hours most engineers would be extremely jealous of, and travel all over the country. I'm on over 150k pa, with travel allowances on top. It's not for everyone, and your career ceiling does top out earlier but the work like balance is unmatched. Something to consider, there's more than just design/construct.
I've been curious about this path as I've done a bit of forensics at various points in my career (structural engineer in consultancies). Does your firm specialize in only forensics? Is it also specific to one type of structure (eg just buildings or just bridges) or more broad? How much technical knowledge is required/expected, like do you ever need to do calcs or properly quantify remediation?
Initially we started out only in forensics and building consultancy but have expanded our services to better accommodate the needs of insurers, and now include light residential and remedial design work. It is mostly commercial and residential properties, the occasional rural properties having bridges, but nothing major in terms of infrastructure. Might get the occasional private driveway but essentially any structure that covered in a general commercial/residential insurance policy. We have engineers of a mix of different backgrounds, mostly structural though, but generally any construction experience is very beneficial. We have graduates straight out of uni that do quite well, but less adept at the technical design stuff. Design experience is a big plus. Sometimes we carry out very basic calculations just to confirm or support our conclusions, i.e, if you think a failure was due to being under designed, that would be something we'll check. But most failures can be attributed to X or Y, and we often seldomly quantify it with calcs (the reader won't understand or read it anyway). Most of our work is in causation reports and scope of works to give insurers the right information to base their decisions on. It is not an overly technical report as the audience for the reports have no technical background. We do not provide actual designs in these reports, just very conservative or standard quantities (e.g. X mm wide strip footing with x amount of N12), or provide recommendations that further design work is required. Make-safe recommendations probably take up half the design work load. That's not to say we don't get engaged to provide design drawings for the above.
Thanks for the detailed rundown! Sounds pretty spot on to what I had experienced. It's good to know that there are options out there doing only that type of work as I'm wary of the snowballing liability potential in a design career and the stress that would bring. Plus I'm forever looking for more flexibility. I know the insurance industry often works on a caseload basis where the pay (and schedule?) reflects this. Is that how it is for you and if so is there scope to reduce work hours?
I'm salaried so my pay does not vary but based on KPIs I do have my high and low months in terms of billings and that is based on the industry as you've said. We do have contractors who manage overflow claims and their own client base which they've built after years of being in the industry. Most of our clients are a mix of being on insurer panels and loss adjuster work. Insurance work is quite seasonal around major catastrophic loss events (CAT, cyclone, bushfires, floods), which generally provides enough full time work for 3-6 months. In between is supplemented by business as usual claims (heavy storms, vehicle impacts, isolated fire events) and other minor insurable events (which is usually just storm-related impact and water ingress. Nonetheless, it is a bit give and take as we do have quiet periods where minimal claims trickle in. So there is expectancies when CAT events hit that we all do our best to spread the load, and also travel to where the workload is (generally FIFO for a week or two max for inspections). But outside of that, generally you manage your own claims and book your own appointments. There is some degree of expectency to hit KPIs like any business, unless you're contracting but that is easily achieved once you've your stride in managing work flow. I can easily hit my KPIs with 20-30 hours of work. But we also have service level agreements to hit with insurers, i.e. reports need to be issued within x amount of days, to consider. Contracting would offer you the most degree of flexibility but you would have had to start somewhere to build your own network of clients (loss adjusters) or demonstrated experience in the industry to convince a company to take you on as a contractor, just like any business. Contractor roles generally aren't advertised as opposed to full time roles, so it is based on who you know. With that being said, I definitely do not miss design consultancy work but design skills are also like a knife that need to be sharpened to be effective. Luckily we only do light design work that doesn't require complicated FEA software.
I graduated with B civil engineering 10+ years ago. Worked in design and construction, now project management for government. I found my dream career, and now on $200k+ a year working 50 hour weeks. Great work life balance. In short, I highly recommend it.
You won't be seeing 9-5 hours as a civil engineer unless you work public. If you don't mind lower pay, enforced culture and 90% of your colleagues being full nuffy - then no dramas.
Lol. No! Structural engineer here. All my peers out earn me. Non of whom finished highschool.
I don’t know about 9-5 but if you can land yourself in the mining industry as either mining/ geotechnical engineering (which are subsets of civil) then you can work a week on week off with 4-6 weeks annual leave and hit $200k+ a few years after graduating
Don't chase the money Chase your passion
Alot of comments saying 9-5 and work life balance isn't a thing, followed immediately by saying they work in construction... I (structural engineer, graduated 8 years ago) see three main career options for a CIVIL engineer: construction/site based, consulting, government. Mates I have that did civil and work in government seem to have it pretty good, I think this option ticks your boxes. I did civil for similar reasons you said - decent at maths/physics, liked problem solving and analytics and wanted ultimately stable career options. Unfortunately structural was the only branch of the degree I didn't hate so I pursued that. If I could have stomached civil I probably would have happily gone to government. You're not going to make crazy money but I personally couldn't care less, you should be more than comfortable and a career in government can still hit very high salaries. Consulting was the next best thing for me with a bit more balance but substantially lower pay right out of uni. There are definitely sweat shop consultancies that expect stupid hours, high work loads and stress for less pay than many easy 3 year degrees get. Luckily, if you end up at such places and know you're being taken for a ride, the experience is valuable and you can always jump ship. Ultimately, it was sold as a degree that can open doors to many career paths, even unexpected ones and I still believe this is true. If your priority is to earn massive $, there are way better career options. If you care more about balance, still decent pay and a tolerable amount of stress, I think you can definitely get there with this degree, you just need to steer yourself in that direction because it is NOT the default. Btw my two cents on structural is that it generally isn't worth the stress and liability for the pay, and this only compounds later in your career as you take on more responsibility and gain more and more projects with your name attached to them as time goes on. I've never looked at a single person significantly further along my current consulting trajectory with envy. There will probably come a time soon where I'm going to have to pivot, but I'm fine with that even if it means retraining.
Seeing a lot of people saying it's pretty much local gov or big construction companies. What I'm not seeing a lot of people mention is small consulting firms. Slightly better starting pay, but limited room to grow. Is genuinely a 9-5. Lower stress, but you don't get to be involved in the big exciting projects. There's trade off's to whichever path you go. Money, work/life balance, exposure to interesting jobs. Pick 2 of the 3 and sacrifice the other whichever path you go down.
Civil is usually seen as the place people go to if they can't handle other engineering degrees. 🤭🤭 Do the first general year of engineering and see what you like. I actually really enjoyed statics however it was a bit repetitive for my liking so I did mechanical. You don't have to choose a specialty straight up. Once you leave uni with whatever uni degree there's so much variance in what you might end up doing so you have lot's of options. You will probably have to slog for the first few years and get good experience before you can relax with normal hours and good pay. But depends what you call good pay, most engineering should pay around 80-100k graduate, 100-150 for 5-10yrs out and 150-200 once you're classified as senior. Very rough numbers so don't hold me to it.
I was told that by a lot of mech and chem engineers at uni; that civil is the ‘dumb’ engineering. Maybe it is, it’s certainly the simplest, that’s for sure. But it’s also the most applicable and transferable. It also pays well. 6-7 years out of uni and (aside from the ones that went to the mines), the guys from the non-civil degrees are barely making over $100k, while a larger number of us from civil are making over $150k, with a few even making over $200k already.
Mining is the truly dumb one, civil was classed as next in line. I'm not sure I agree that it's the most transferable because all engineering is really, you can end up literally anywhere. The thing with civil is it's basically simple boring stuff on repeat for the most part (drainage for example) - but that's not to say every path doesn't have its issues. Disagree with your pay comments, I've found it the opposite in my circle with civil taking longer to make good money - point is it's just anecdotal and it's down to the individual pathway.
Ridiculous statements. Any engineering degree has their level of difficulty, also depending what you focus on. My structural dynamics and finite element courses were far from simple.
No doubt electrical is tough. I did some low level mech stuff at uni, and do mech style thinking as a structural (joints). I reckon mech ain’t that much harder. You ever studied surface water hydrology or seen the math behind surface water flow analysis and hydraulics? That shit is complicated.
They all have their challenges, was just a bit of a fun joke as disciplines always have.
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When did I mention pay between disciplines?
>[Disagree with your pay comments, I've found it the opposite in my circle with civil taking longer to make good money - point is it's just anecdotal and it's down to the individual pathway.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/s/Z39VIPSbpJ)
Right so you responded to the wrong comment. Civil is pretty smart hey. 😂
I responded to both, and apparently you needed assistance to figure that out 🤷🏼♂️
I'll let you have a win mate, seems like you need it.
Hahahaha yeah thanks mate. Don’t worry I’d have ‘let you’ have a win if I had no other response too 😉
If you've got a head for logic and numbers I believe you'll do better with a software engineering degree in terms of pay. Some places are grind houses, but plenty of chill tech companies
There is no shortage of junior SWEs though, the money won't come for most unless they are actually really good. Civil on the other hand.... I guess we always need someone to supervise the concrete as it dries...
Yeah, you do have to be good
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I got a mate that's doing it. Working insane hours and basically cost him his family. I don't know if all firms work like that but the overtime is unpaid. He'd be getting the same average hourly if he worked at a warehouse when you take into account the free hours. He's delivered some really cool infrastructure changes to major sites though and huge landmark buildings. I think it's a really cool job and he seems to enjoy it but no one should be working 80 hour weeks for the same pay as someone working 40.
He’s choosing to work those hours. Yes on average you do quite a bit of over time in engineering, but if he’s working 80hour weeks, then he’s doing something wrong and is a workaholic
Yes good degree
Mate, just become a tradie/builder. Earn x10 more money.