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
References
- Morgan McKinley Ireland Salary Guide Calculator 2022 (for Dublin) When using the calculator, choose “Engineering” or “Science” from the drop-down menu labelled “Discipline” to find relevant roles.
- Sigmar Recruitment
- Brightwater Salary Survey
- Bureau of Labor Statistics NAICS 325400 – Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing – May 2021 Estimates
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.