Engineering Background

Potential Job Roles and Salaries

What kind of roles would I be suitable for based on my engineering background?

If your current or previous job was in engineering, you could retrain to perform the SAME OR SIMILAR job within the high-paying pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturing industry.

Here are some of the typical roles and the expected salaries:

Process Engineer

Responsible for designing, implementing, controlling and optimizing industrial processes, especially continuous ones within the chemical, petrochemical, agriculture, mineral processing, advanced material, food, pharmaceutical, and biotechnological industries.

Starting Salary: €45,000 to €55,000
After 3 Years: €55,000 to €65,000
After 5 Years: €65,000 to €75,000+

Starting Salary: $77,824
After 2 Years: $97,530
After 5 Years: $116,236

Manufacturing Engineer

Responsible for development, design, implementation and monitoring of equipment, tools and machinery used in the manufacturing process. Their primary goal is to create the stages of a manufacturing system that ultimately produces a product in the most time-efficient and cost-effective way possible, while always maintaining staff safety and product quality.

Starting Salary: €38,000 to €50,000
After 3 Years: €50,000 to €60,000
After 5 Years: €60,000 to €70,000

Starting Salary: $77,824
After 2 Years: $98,030
After 5 Years: $117,236

Project Engineer

Manages technical or engineering projects. They work with stakeholders at all levels, with direct responsibility for budgeting, personnel and project planning.

Starting Salary: €40,000+
After 3 Years: €45,000 to €55,000
After 5 Years: €55,000 to €75,000

Starting Salary: $83,400
After 2 Years: $104,250
After 5 Years: $123,100

Instrumentation Engineer

Provision of computer programming and instrumentation support as well as designing and developing specialised instrumentation and equipment as required.

Starting Salary: €40,000 to €45,000
After 3 Years: €45,000 to €60,000
After 5 Years: €60,000 to €70,000

Starting Salary: $76,840
After 2 Years: $95,800
After 5 Years: $114,760

Quality Engineer

Works within the quality team to ensure the overall quality of a manufactured product and are tasked with creating documentation, devising quality tests and defining the criteria a test result should meet. They play a key role in fixing issues when they arise.

Some companies might call this role:

QA Engineer
QC Engineer

Starting Salary: $75,800
After 2 Years: $94,850
After 5 Years: $113,700

Some companies might call this role:

QA Engineer
QC Engineer

Starting Salary: €40,000 to €45,000
After 3 Years: €45,000 to €60,000
After 5 Years: €60,000 to €75,000

Automation Engineer

Utilises technology to improve, streamline and automate a manufacturing process. They are responsible for planning, implementation, and monitoring of such technology.

Some companies might call this role:

Automation Specialist

Starting Salary: €45,000 – €55,000
After 3 Years: €55,000 – €70,000
After 5 Years: €70,000 – €100,000

Some companies might call this role:

Automation Specialist

Starting Salary: $76,200
After 2 Years: $95,000
After 5 Years: $114,800

References

Bureau of Labor Statistics NAICS 325400 – Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing – May 2021 Estimates

Career Builder

Salaries are calculated as 80%, 100% and 120% of BLS averages.

What Courses Do I Need to Take?

If your CURRENT or PREVIOUS job is in engineering;

STEP 1: You will first need to take our Conversion Course into Engineering Roles in Pharma to perform the SAME OR SIMILAR job within the pharma industry.

Conversion Course into Engineering Roles in Pharma

Ideal for:

anyone with a mechanical, facilities, production, maintenance, manufacturing, industrial, quality, plant, maintenance, civil engineering background

…who want: to work in the same or similar kinds of roles within the pharma and medical device industry or engineering consultancies

Duration: 18 weeks
Delivery: Completely ONLINE with weekly progress checks
Hours per week 12
Awarding body: GetReskilled

STEP 2: Then take our Equipment Validation Training Course (ONLINE) – For Starter Validation, CQV and C&Q Roles and learn how those systems are validated.

Equipment Validation Training Course – For Starter Validation CQV and C&Q Roles

Ideal for:

Candidates with mechanical, maintenance, production, industrial engineering/technician background

…who want: to learn how to validate equipment in a pharmaceutical manufacturing background.

Duration: 10 weeks. (Note: you can skip the first 5 weeks of the program as you have already covered GMPs)
Delivery: Completely ONLINE with weekly progress checks
Hours per week: 14
Awarding body: GetReskilled

Available Jobs

Irish Pharmaceutical Jobs Board

Check out the Irelands largest pharmaceutical and medical device jobs board and see what jobs are available.
Check now for open positions. Irish Pharma Jobs Board

UK Pharmaceutical Jobs Board

Check out the UK’s largest jobs board focused exclusively on the pharmaceutical and medical device sector and see what jobs are available.
Check now for open positions. UK Pharma Jobs Board

Case Studies and Success Stories

No Manufacturing Experience? No Problem (Aaron’s story)
From Engineering Consultancy into Pharma
From Optician to Chemical Process Technician!

What Kind of Jobs Can Engineers Get in the Pharma Industry?

Your Content Goes Here

There are an enormous variety and range of engineering disciplines so it can be a real challenge to figure out what kind of jobs or roles you would be suitable for in the pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturing industries or the engineering consultancies that service them.

So we have put together this guide to help you get a better understanding of what kinds of roles are available based on your background and what retraining (we have suggested combinations of different technical modules for different jobs) if any would be required.

Click on the links to jump to the engineering discipline you’re interested in.