AUGI: 2008 Salary Survey

[ReMark]

See the September/October 2008 issue of AUGIWorld. Or go online and visit www.augi.com. Registration is free.

Salary information is provided by job title/region and industry/region. There is even an average salary by major factors section (education, gender, location and years of experience). Are you making what you're worth? What's in your wallet?

Here's a direct link:

http://www.augi.com/publications/default.asp?page=1692

[ReMark]

After taking a quick look at the print version of the salary survey I am struck by the following.

The disparity in pay levels between those with the highest level of education and those with the lowest is about $5043.

The disparity in pay levels between males and females is approximately $5641.

In the nine categories of average salary by job title/region four of the highest paid positions are in Australia, two in Great Britain, two in the Pacific and one in the Southwest regions of the U.S. However, if one looks only at the U.S. then the results are four in the Pacific, three in the Southwest and two in the Atlantic region.

In the ten categories of average salary by industry/region six of the ten highest paid industries are in Austraila, two in the Pacific region of the U.S., and one each in Great Britain and the Atlantic region of the U.S. However, if one looks only at the U.S. then the results are seven in the Pacific, two in the Southwest and one in the Atlantic region.

Bottom line? Move to Australia, Great Britain, the Pacific or the Southwest region of the U.S. to increase your chances of getting a better paying job. I'm betting that the one drawback could be the cost of living might well be higher.

Very interesting, yes?

The website link has some additional information that is not covered in the print article. Check it out.

[rkmcswain]

The disparity in pay levels between those with the highest level of education and those with the lowest is about $5043.

The disparity in pay levels between males and females is approximately $5641.

First off, < 6000 responses is too small of a sample. Augi themselves claim membership numbers of "over 100,000". So less than 6% of their own membership even took the survey. What percentage of CAD users inthe world even belong to augi... maybe 2%?

6% of 2% is pretty small.

Also, why are the 9 Ph.D.'s making less on average, than the 1600+ users with a BA? Something doesn't add up there...

In the nine categories of average salary by job title/region four of the highest paid positions are in Australia, two in Great Britain, two in the Pacific and one in the Southwest regions of the U.S. However, if one looks only at the U.S. then the results are four in the Pacific, three in the Southwest and two in the Atlantic region.

It's difficult to take anything meaningful from this. What if only one "Designer" responded from Australia, who happened to make $70,104.17?

Take the BIM manager from GB. Are BIM managers in GB making 1.75 times what BIM managers in Canada are making? I suspect there was a single response from GB since the number is round (there were only 131 total responses from BIM Managers worldwide...)

In the ten categories of average salary by industry/region six of the ten highest paid industries are in Austraila, two in the Pacific region of the U.S., and one each in Great Britain and the Atlantic region of the U.S. However, if one looks only at the U.S. then the results are seven in the Pacific, two in the Southwest and one in the Atlantic region.

Again, look at some of the numbers. The Australian MEP is an even 70,000 while the other MEP responses are closer to 50,000. How many Australian MEP responses were there? For that matter, how many Australians participated at all?

Bottom line? Move to Australia, Great Britain, the Pacific or the Southwest region of the U.S. to increase your chances of getting a better paying job. I'm betting that the one drawback could be the cost of living might well be higher.

On the surface, it does appear that salaries are higher in Australia for some disciplines (Manufacturing, MEP, Petro, FM) - but what about Construction and Architecture in AUS? It seems as if these would be higher also, but they are right in the middle...?

I'm not trying to take anything away from the effort of those involved, but I wouldn't put too much into the results based on the tiny sample of responses.

[ReMark]

6,000 samples out of 100,000 members is too small. That's probably true. I'll give you that one.

There's a college in my home state that does a lot of political surveys. In a state with around 3 million people many of the so called surveys sample less than 500 individuals. Then they have the nerve to qualify the accuracy as + or - 2%. LOL