The second most popular professional course in India is Engineering which includes B.Tech, BE, M.Tech, ME. Every year, 1.5 million engineers graduate from over 3300 colleges in India as of 2018. This number is increasing substantially every year.
Does India need 1.5 million engineers per year? How many graduates manage to get respectable jobs in their field? These are a few thoughts to ponder upon. But in this article, I would like to present my findings and views about why are most of the Civil Engineering freshers underpaid.
First of all, lets look at figures of average salary packages of few popular engineering branches.
Clearly, fresh Civil graduates are paid the least when compared to other branches. The most common job profile that a Civil engineering fresher gets, is that of a Site engineer. To those who are not familiar with this job profile, this is one of the most challenging jobs in a construction site.
The duties of a Site engineer include :-
- Site supervision - This is one of the major duty of a site engineer. Everyday, site engineers are updated about the day's activities and plans, and it is their responsibility to execute and complete it without compromising on the quality, before the deadline. They spend most of their time On-Site, unlike Managers and Designers. Thus, it is safe to say that a site engineer should have ample technical knowledge.
- Scheduling, Quantity calculation, reports etc - For a building to be constructed, hundreds of drawings, calculations and reports have to be prepared. More often than not, site engineers are asked to take care of shuttering quantity and concrete quantity calculations, Bar bending schedules etc.
- Quality control and assurance - Often, site engineers supervise the tests conducted in QA/QC labs. As any undesirable practice leads to loss of time and money of the company, QA/QC processes should be carried out flawlessly. Not only in the lab, site engineers also control and ensure quality during on site works like compaction, reinforcements position etc.
- Travelling - Sometimes, a site engineer is asked to travel from site to site (depending upon the size of company and the project) for procurement of resources, raw materials etc.
So it is very important for a site engineer to have a strong technical background, as well as good communication skills which is essential to maintain a good rapport with the laborers and managers. And most important of all, they need great managerial skills so as to get work done from the laborers. A person who does all these jobs, would expect a salary of at least 3.5-4 lakhs per annum as a fresher. But sadly, on an average, a site engineer is paid around 2-2.4 lakhs per annum.
This got me wondering, why? Even after being one of the most important part of a construction site and taking care of almost all major activities, why are site engineers paid a pittance?
Well, the answer is pretty simple.
A Computer science student writes hundreds of codes, ECE and EEE student builds and evaluates thousands of circuits, but a Civil engineering student does not construct a single Building.
Though this statement is meant to be taken as just a humor, it talks a lot about what Civil engineering students are taught in their UG, rather what they are not taught in their UG. Many industry professionals claim that Civil engineering freshers do not know 90% of the technical skills that they should have mastered. So it takes lots of effort and training for a company to train a Civil engineering fresher before they are ready for site execution as there is very little that a fresher can offer to the company.
Whereas, in case of IT branch, freshers already know more than half of the things that are required to complete a project. So they have a lot more to offer to the company, and hence get paid comparatively higher.
So, Experience counts a lot in Construction industry. A civil engineer can be compared to a barrel of wine, more the experience, better the value.
Another major factor of why civil freshers are underpaid, is the size of the project and the number of people involved in it. A typical construction project involves at least 40-50 employees and 250+ laborers. Even though the overall project might cost 100+ crores, salaries are broken down into many packets, which starts from project manager and goes till site engineers and laborers. As a result, hierarchically, site engineers get the least salary, apart from laborers. However, in a Software company, a particular project relatively has 15-20 people working on it at max.
These factors explain why Civil engineering freshers are underpaid. Does that mean taking up civil engineering does not earn enough bread? Won't taking up other branches earn us more money? Well, that would make a perfect topic for another article.
K A Chetan
