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June 16, 2025
Key Takeaways
Civil engineering, construction and surveying remain strong career choices, offering solid earnings that grow with experience, chartered status, and specialist skills. Your location, experience, and choice of path will heavily influence earning potential.
How much you can earn in civil engineering, construction and surveying careers
Thinking about a career in engineering, construction or surveying? Demand for these roles is showing no signs of slowing in the coming years, so it’s an excellent choice if you would like to future-proof your career.
Although methods may change, there will always be demand for construction and engineering professionals. The world will need to find ways to become more energy efficient, which will put demands on the construction sector to update and renew infrastructure.
These careers typically suit those with excellent problem solving skills, a natural affinity for maths, physics and design subjects, and a lifelong passion for learning. This is a sector that is always changing and evolving based on new information, so applicants need to be adaptive to change.
Whatever stage you are at in your career, you might be thinking about switching to an engineering-focused path. Alongside the entry requirements and the role expectations, how much you can expect to earn is likely to be a key consideration. For many people, this will help them to determine which path they ultimately pursue. Read on to learn more about salary expectations for these three sectors…
Chartered Roles Pay More
Chartered engineers, construction managers, and surveyors tend to command significantly higher salaries, especially in senior roles.
Experience & Specialist Skills
Your earnings growth depends heavily on years of experience, type of employer, travel demands, and any specialist or chartered certifications you can achieve.
As an entry-level civil engineer, you can expect to earn around £28,000 per year. With more experience, you can expect this to increase to around £60,000 per year. As a consultant, you could earn significantly more, with many experienced civil engineering consultants earning up to £80,000 per year.
If you become a chartered civil engineer, this can have a big impact on your earning potential. As a newly accredited chartered engineer, you can expect to earn around £45,000 per year. With more experience, this could increase to £62,000 and at the height of your career, you could be earning up to £90,000 per year.
As a construction manager, you can expect to earn around £27,000 per year. As you become more experienced, expect this to increase to around £65,000 per year. The sector you work in will have a big impact on your earning potential, but with the bigger pay packet comes bigger responsibility. Deadlines may be tighter and budgets may be more carefully scrutinised once you are working on larger projects.
If you become a chartered construction manager, expect to earn around £60,000 and £85,000 per year. You might be working on residential, commercial, industrial or infrastructure projects. There may be opportunities to travel and you could even find yourself working overseas if you land a role with a multinational corporation.
Upon graduating and landing your first role as a surveyor, you can expect to earn around £22,000 to £26,000, depending on the size of the organisation you work with. While a large organisation might be able to offer a bigger pay packet, working with a smaller organisation could enable you to progress in your role faster.
With more experience, this could increase to around £45,000 per year, with the top surveyors earning around £65,000 per year. As with the former roles, you’ll also have the opportunity to become a chartered surveyor, which will add prestige to your CV and enable you to command higher salaries. Expect to be earning around £65,000 as a senior chartered surveyor. Where you work will have a big impact on your earning potential.
| Role / Level | Salary Insights |
|---|---|
| Entry-Level Civil Engineer | ≈ £28,000 per year |
| Mid-Career Civil Engineer / Consultant | Around £60,000, up to ~£80,000 for consultants |
| Entry Construction Manager | ≈ £27,000 per year |
| Chartered Construction Manager | £60,000-£85,000 depending on employer & project scope |
| Junior Surveyor / First Role | £22,000-£26,000 depending on organisation size |
| Senior Chartered Surveyor | Up to ~£65,000 for experienced or chartered roles |
There are a few factors that could impact your earnings, allowing you to maximise your earnings, or take a pay cut. These factors are not isolated to the engineering sector, and you can expect to face these challenges and opportunities in any line of work.
If you’re not sure which one is right for you, you don’t have to decide all at once. With an engineering background, you will be able to tailor your career to your personal interests, and this could help you explore different options until the right one becomes clear.
As you can see, the earning potential across these career choices is quite similar, so it’s possible to make the decision about more than just how much money you would like to take home every month. You can also look at the differences in the working patterns to determine if these career choices will enable you to live the life that you want. For example, if travel is important to you, it might be vital to choose a career path with the opportunity to work overseas. Other people might be more interested in working on prestigious projects that are well-known. Whatever your preferences, there will be an engineering-based career path that is right for you.
Interested in civil engineering, construction or surveying roles? Browse our current vacancies to unlock the best salary & opportunities available.
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