pay rises are falling. They are now running at under 3 per cent and,
with maximum increases in the public sector set at 1.5 per cent, many companies
have announced that their employees will not receive a rise at all. So
far, however, scientists and engineers appear to have fared better than
many other groups because there is still a small, unfulfilled demand for
technically qualified graduates.
The Association of Graduate Recruiters surveyed 304 companies recently
and found that the average salary paid to newly qualified graduates last
autumn was £12 800 a year (up just 2.4 per cent on the previous
year). But for scientists and engineers, the average was £13 500,
with the actual figures ranging from below £10 000 a year to more
than £17 000.
The highest starting salaries are paid by the chemicals, oil, pharmaceuticals
and allied industries ( £14 000) followed by transport and telecommunications
( £13 800), energy and water ( £13 500) and other manufacturing
( £13 400). ‘Graduates with technical skills and sponsored students
are more likely to attract the highest salaries in the industrial sector,’
says Roly Cockman, secretary of the AGR.
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A survey by Remuneration Economics in association with the Engineering
Council found that engineers’ pay has risen by 2.4 per cent more than average
earnings, and 7.2 per cent more than the Retail Price Index during the
past three years. Average salaries of 25 to 29-year-old chartered engineers
are £21 500. This compares favourably with graduates in other disciplines
recruited three years ago, who are now earning an average of £16
820.
The Central Services Unit for Careers Advisory Services recently published
a survey of salaries for the job vacancies it advertised in 1992. New graduate
scientists were being offered an average starting salary of £12 344
and engineers £12 939. Top of the league are electrical and electronic
engineers with an average of £14 000, followed by chemical engineers
at £13 406.
Computer scientists have lost the lead they had last year, with advertised
salaries now averaging £12 022 compared with physicists ( £12
989), chemists ( £12 840), biological scientists ( £12 771)
and biochemists ( £12 500). Bottom are agricultural scientists ( £11
376), environmental scientists ( £11 917) and civil engineers ( £11
259). These figures are, of course, averages. Actual salaries vary considerably
from one industry to another and in different parts of the country.
Teachers have done particularly well in recent years. ‘New graduates
with at least a lower second class degree are being paid £12 366
a year in the provinces and £14 211 a year in central London,’ says
Jennifer Jones of the Department of Environment’s initiative Teaching as
a Career. Trainee teachers are now being paid more than trainee chartered
accountants, which may be one factor in the large increase in applications
from scientists for the postgraduate certificate in education. But the future
is not so rosy. Teachers have been offered 0.55 per cent plus £90
in this year’s pay round, which suggests that pay may remain fairly static
in the months to come.
At the other extreme are some scientists in the NHS, where qualified
medical laboratory scientific officers receive £10 016. They do,
however, receive extra payments for stand-by duty and for being on-call.
¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵs employed in the Civil Service and research councils have
been concerned since 1980 that their pay was lagging behind that of engineers
in the professional and technical grades. Their trade union, the Institution
of Professionals, Managers and Specialists (IPMS), has been pressing for
this inequality to be removed and, in the most recent pay settlement, scientists
were at last awarded pay parity with engineers.
Some begin their careers as assistant scientific officers, others as
scientific officers or sometimes senior scientific officers. Each grade
has a scale and a range. For scientific officers the scale goes from £10
973 to £14 689 and the range can add six increments up to £18
632. Senior scientific officers can now reach £27 584.
‘As part of last year’s agreement,’ says Valerie Ellis of the IPMS,
‘government departments, agencies and nondepartmental public bodies can
remove themselves from the national pay system and develop their own arrangements
provided they meet Treasury approval. It is known that some research councils
would like to have a delegated pay system.’ By next year the rates of pay
in different parts of the Civil Service and research councils could vary
considerably from those currently operating. However, the research councils
continue to recruit scientists on short-term contracts.
One of the long-standing ironies is that the most academically able
scientists often go on to further research or study supported by research
council grants while those who achieve poorer degree ratings, but who are
perhaps more persuasive, may go into sales and marketing and earn up to
three times more.
Grants for postgraduate students from the Science and Engineering Research
Council start at £4450 tax free in the provinces and £5600
in London. In comparison, according to Jean Machon of Innovax, a recruitment
consultant, ‘salaries for those in the first year of a career in pharmaceuticals
sales are in the region of £14 000 plus expenses, bonus and a car’.
Neil Harris is deputy director of the University of London Careers Advisory
Service and head of the Careers Service at University College London.