Issue 41: Salaries Earned by Fire Protection Engineers
During early 2010, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers conducted a survey of fire protection engineers to develop a snapshot of employment compensation as a function of work experience and other factors. This is the fifteenth time that SFPE has conducted this survey since 1976. The last survey, conducted in 2007, evaluated compensation received in 2006. The 2010 survey asked for information regarding compensation in 2009. Overall, the median salary for fire protection engineers was $US 110,500, which was 12.5% higher than was found in the 2007 survey.
A total of 658 people participated in the survey, which was administered using a web-based tool in early 2010. The survey contained questions about experience, job responsibilities, age, base compensation, incentive pay, and other benefits.
The vast majority (87%) of respondents were from the United States, so the results are primarily illustrative for fire protection engineers who work in that country. Most respondents (90%) were members of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
The survey found annual average growth of 4.2% in total compensation (base pay plus incentive pay) over each of the last three years, which is down from the annual increase of approximately 6% found in 2007. This can be contrasted with the U.S. national average salary increase of 3.9% in 2008 and 2.2% in 2009.
While this shows that fire protection engineering has weathered the economic downturn well, not all of the findings have been positive. There has been a large increase in the number of unemployed fire protection engineers; 7.2% of respondents indicated that they were unemployed at some point during 2009, which is an increase from the 0.2% who were unemployed during 2007. However, this unemployment rate is below the U.S.-national rate of approximately 10% in 2009.
Another factor that could impact the increase in salaries is that a higher number of people with professional engineer's licenses responded to the 2010 survey than responded to the 2007 survey. People with professional engineer's licenses constituted 44% of the respondents to the 2007 survey and 65% of the respondents to the 2010 survey. The survey found that having a professional engineer's license (P.E. or P.Eng.) corresponds to a 10% higher median salary when compared to people who do not have a professional engineer's license.
Median base salaries increased steadily from $70,000 for fire protection engineers with less than six years experience to $120,000 for fire protection engineers with 26 to 30 years of experience. However, median salaries did not continue to increase with experience beyond 30 years.
Salaries showed an appreciable gain as a function of experience for fire protection engineers who are new to the profession. Those with two years of experience had a median base salary of $63,000, which increased to $70,000 for those with three years of experience, $74,500 for those with four years of experience, and $75,000 with five years of experience. Collectively, this is an increase of almost 20% over three years.
For the first time, the 2010 salary survey explored the correlation between professional responsibility and salary. As would be expected, there was a direct correlation between responsibility and base salary. Engineers who have the least amount of responsibility and work under the close supervision of senior engineers had a median salary of $55,000, and the engineers with the most responsibility earned a median base salary of $138,000.
In addition to base salary, 70% of respondents reported that they also received incentive-based pay, with a median value of almost $10,000. Incentive-based pay included bonuses, overtime pay, commissions, etc. Twenty percent of entry-level engineers reported that they received incentive-based pay, and the fraction of engineers who received incentive-based pay increased to approximately 70% for more experienced engineers. For all but the most experienced engineers, the incentive-based pay was 8-9% of base salary; the most experienced engineers received incentive-based pay that totaled 16-18% of their base salaries.
Education had an impact on the total salary received by fire protection engineers. Fire protection engineers who had ten or fewer years of experience received 15-22% more in total compensation if they had a masters degree compared to those with similar experience who only had a bachelors degree. This difference diminished for fire protection engineers with 11 or more years of experience.
Supervisory responsibility affected the total compensation received. Fire protection engineers with 11 or more years of experience received on average 12% more in total compensation if they had supervisory responsibility than that received by fire protection engineers who did not. However, there was almost no difference in the total compensation received by fire protection engineers with 10 or fewer years of experience who had supervisory responsibility when compared to those without supervisory responsibility.
While most of the respondents were from the United States, there were some interesting findings regarding fire protection engineers who worked outside of the U.S. The median salary for fire protection engineers who worked in Canada was $C 96,500, and the median salary in Sweden was €45,000. The median salary increase in 2009 was 3% in the United States and Canada, compared with 0% in New Zealand and Australia. The median salary increase was much higher in the Middle East, at 7% in Saudi Arabia and 9% in the United Arab Emirates. However, as the sample sizes were very small, conclusions for countries other than the Unites States should be made with caution.
The full report can be viewed at www.sfpe.org.
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