ClearEdge3D’s AEC Industry Salary Report is the result of a survey mailed to 6,500 executives in the AEC space. As for the respondents, most of the AEC execs who took part in the survey were from the US (67%), with Europe at a distant second (14%), and Africa (3%) and South America (1%) rounding out the numbers. ClearEdge notes that this means the results “skew heavily” toward that region.
Here’s a quick overview of what the data shows:
The AEC Industry Pays Men More than Women
The first thing to know is that the industry looks to be male-dominated, with over 90% of respondents identifying as men. Unsurprisingly, ClearEdge3D also found a serious pay disparity between genders, with 30% of male respondents reporting a salary of $100,000 or more–as compared to only 23% of female respondents.
What might surprise you (though it shouldn’t), is that this pay disparity holds true despite the female execs having roughly comparable levels of experience, and higher levels of education than their male counterparts.
Even worse, a full 36% of female execs are making under $50,000 a year, compared to only 19% of their male counterparts. In other words, the gender pay gap is real in the AEC industry.
Americans Make More Money
You might have guessed that American AEC executives would make the most money, but you might not have guessed *how much* more money.
Only 41% of execs in the US make under $75,000, as compared to 85% in Western Europe and 92% in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, 32% of US respondents make more than $100,000, compared to 9% in Western Europe, and a clean 0% in Eastern Europe.
Raises are Handed out Sparingly
ClearEdge3D described these results as surprising and bleak. “Despite two years of excellent industry growth,” the company says, 34% of respondents didn’t get a raise in 2016. A few industries were hit even harder, with roughly 50% of surveyors and 52% of service providers seeing no increase in salary.
Hopefully, with ClearEdge’s full report in hand, AEC companies can make steps toward improving things in the future.
