<p>ZweigWhite does an annual survey of structural engineers (and I think civil engineers, too, but I haven't seen their annual survey yet) to determine specifics about salary and benefits. Some folks around here have asked in the past what various types of engineers tend to make... Here's the low-down for structurals. The figures which give the most direct data can be found by clicking on the links for Table 1 and Table 2.</p>
<p>Interesting things I noticed...</p>
<ul>
<li>Never knew there was such a thing as cancer insurance.</li>
<li>I'm very surprised only 10% offer charitable matching. Though it would be significantly higher.</li>
<li>How does DC have the highest median salary?</li>
<li>Louisiana is the 2nd highest? Is that because of Katrina?</li>
<li>Very surprised by Arizona. I always hear about the low cost of living there.</li>
</ul>
<p>
[quote]
cancer insurance
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, it's kind of weird. My company just started offering something like that this year, but it's cancer insurance, heart attack insurance, stroke insurance, and it's got three or four different diseases. You are allowed to pick one or multiple diseases that you think you're likely to get, and you pay them a certain sum of money every year. After three or something months of not having said disease, you are fully invested for a certain amount of money. If you're diagnosed with whichever disease you picked, you get the full amount of money in the pot.</p>
<p>It's probably a great comfort for people with a strong family history of heart disease or cancer or whatever, but it's a little too much like playing a gruesome sort of lotto for my tastes...</p>
<p>
[quote]
charitable matching
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My old company offered it, my new company doesn't. It surprises me, too.</p>
<p>Not sure about DC, Louisiana, or Arizona. All I know about DC is that the cost of living there is increasing, that my company's about to open an office there (so the market there must be pretty saturated), and that there's a lot of government renovation going on. With Louisiana, it <em>might</em> be Katrina... They don't do a lot of new construction in general, so they probably have a fewer number of engineers, but a higher number of bigwigs in for the reconstruction efforts. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it's artificially inflated because of that.</p>
<p>aibarr, thank you for sharing. When you come across the civil engineering survey, I would appreciate you posting. I plan on sharing this information with my son.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's probably a great comfort for people with a strong family history of heart disease or cancer or whatever, but it's a little too much like playing a gruesome sort of lotto for my tastes...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, that is actually pretty weird when you think about it.</p>
<p>Foreverbj, the civil engineering salary survey just arrived in the mail today. It's online, too:</p>
<p>airbarr, thank you. I did not know where to look for this information.</p>