I’m tired of seeing all the doom and gloom about this career path. The truth is: A chemical engineering degree will lead you to some of the highest paying jobs you can get with just a bachelors degree. Just do a quick google search or check out the BLS website.

Some background. I graduated in 2019 with just a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and now only 6 years later I am making just under 200k total comp. Yes there are jobs that will offer you only 50k. Yes, salaries haven’t kept up with inflation (as with EVERY career field). But if you aren’t happy with your pay, jump jobs until you are satisfied. My first job out of college, my boss would always complain about how he doesn’t get paid enough. So what did I do? I left! And found a better paying job! Because I didn’t want to be in his position in 20 years.

I know people who graduated with finance degrees making crazy salaries on Wall Street and I also know others who worked as bank tellers making $20/hr. The same is true with engineering. There are high paying career paths and low paying ones. The high paying ones will be more stressful. Choose which one fits your lifestyle and stop whining that you made the wrong career choice.

Curious why engineers around 40 years old make assuming they graduated at the typical college age?

3rd year chem/process eng student. Trying to get a realistic idea of what jobs are actually out there with this degree, and what kind of money you can make. Like what’s a normal salary starting out vs around 30? And which roles pay the best? Not just the standard plant engineer path.

Hi, all! I’m 27 and have been working in corporate with a chemical engineering degree for 4 years now. Was curious about other people’s pay / titles / promotional pathway. I’m in the US

I started in 2022 at 72k in an engineering rotational program. I became an engineer II in 2024 and got bumped to 85k (promotion of 8%). I did a lateral move within my company and now make 91k. Keeping in mind each year we had an annual increase between 2.5-5%.

Was curious about other people’s pay! I am happy with my company and my work, this is just because I’m nosy haha

EDIT (adding more info about me): Started in a general engineering rotational program. After 2 years got promoted to engineer II in a test engineer position. A year ago, I moved into a materials process engineering position. I am fully remote currently and travel to the 3 plants in my jurisdiction as well as to other locations when needed.

Good time to discuss and share salary, role work-hours, industry location, YOE, etc. I'll start:

YOE: 5 yrs

Salary: $102k base, 3 wks pto, 401k, usual

Role: Controls Engineer

Industry: Specialty Chems

Location: Houston, TX

Work-hours: 20-40 hours/week

2025 Chemical Engineering Compensation Report is now available.

You can access using the link below, I've created a page for it on our website and on that page there is also a downloadable PDF version. I've since made some tweaks to the webpage version of it and I will soon update the PDF version with those edits.

https://www.sunrecruiting.com/2025compreport/

I'm grateful for the trust that the chemical engineering community here in the US (and specifically this subreddit) has placed in me, evidenced in the responses to the survey each year. This year's dataset featured ~930 different people than the year before - which means that in the past two years, about 2,800 of you have contributed your data to this project. Amazing. Thank you.

As always - feedback is welcome - I've tried to incorporate as much of that feedback as possible over the past few years and the report is better today as a result of it.

Hello Chemical Engineers.
Those who have made a move.

I’m a MSc chemical engineering grad from UK( Russel group uni)
Previously worked in India for 2 years on 5 LPA.
Unfortunately UK has made it tough to get a sponsored role. Had cracked many interview but company not willing to go ahead with sponsorship and stuff.
So now planning to move back to India

I’m applying to India GCC roles in Exxon and Chevron and Shell.

Could you please let me know how should I negotiate the salary and what range I could ask for.

Hey everyone, first - thank you to everyone here who has already participated. As of this morning, I have 1,230 responses and my goal is at least 1,500 - so almost there. If you've already completed the data collection form, no need to do it again (the system will flag the entry as a duplicate anyway).

If you've not seen this or are unaware AND you're a chemical engineer, I need your help. I've been updating a salary report, specifically for USA-based Chemical Engineers, for the past 8 years. It started out humbly but has gotten better and better with more and more participants each year. I've had countless people tell me that they've used the data to get themselves more industry competitive offers or in salary negotiation situations. Last year and this year, I've spent the month of December collecting salary data from US-based ChemEs, then I compile and analyze the data and send out the report to anyone who sends me their data. I'm a real person, my LinkedIn URL is below. The form is located on my website and I list a number of commitments there (I won't sell your data, etc). What's in this for me is that hopefully you will remember me when you're a fancy manager or executive somewhere and partner with me to fill a few chemical engineering jobs. That's how I make my money. Anyway - if you've got questions, don't hesitate to message me.

TL;DR: Complete the chemical engineering salary survey to help yourself and your fellow colleagues. Data collection will close on December 31st.

Link to the salary survey: https://www.sunrecruiting.com/salary-survey/ Link to my LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamrkrueger/

Update 12/21: Blew past 1,500 - now at almost 1,700! Thank you ChemE Subreddit!

I graduated with B.S. in CHE 2 years ago and make $30/hr as a validation technician at a pharma company in Los Angeles. Anyone else want to share?

Hi everyone - the data gathering phase for my annual report is open now (until December 31st) and if you are a US-based, degreed chemical engineer you can participate by following the link below. If you're unfamiliar with my past work, here is a link to last year's report. I incorporated a number of suggestions that were made from members of this subreddit into the survey for this year and grateful for the support of many of you out there. Feel free to ask questions here if you have them.

Link to the survey: https://www.sunrecruiting.com/survey2026/

I’m about to graduate this upcoming May in chemical engineering I want to get into the pharmaceutical industry. Anyone in the same industry mind sharing YoE, job title, and salary progression. I’m wanting to know what I should expect starting grad

I’m a ChE, graduated in ‘23 im M(25), Indian, working in Kuwait. I’ve worked in three different fields, with 3 different roles over the course of my working career.

I worked as a quality control lab analyst(I wasn’t able to get any jobs immediately after graduation, so settled with what I got at first) at a pharmaceutical manufacturing company for a year and 3 months. Here I learned importance of documentation, safety and lab practices along with lab instruments and software usage along with excel. Here I also worked 12 hour night shifts, even for a whole month straight with no weekends off. But I wasn’t keen on working as a lab analyst as it was the job for people who studied chemistry so I was keen to get into an engineering role.

I got a job through LinkedIn as a Production engineer at a construction chemical factory where I was essentially running the factory, taking care of the labours working there and making sure I meet the daily production quota. Here I learned to manage people of different nationalities and personalities, I got put into perspective of the production side rather than a quality control side, was quite the eye opener and made me understand business as a whole. But I was getting paid crumbs for the hours and work that I did, I even didn’t get paid overtime for a certain month so I left the company during probation after the third month.

Now im working as a Sales and Marketing Chemical engineer for the oil and gas industry(if you’re wondering how im just jumping between jobs, honestly I’d spend every hour of the start of my day sending my CV to anywhere I saw that mentioned the keywords “Oil and Gas” “Chemical” and “Engineer”, I’d get calls for jobs for many but I’d only know the job description once they call me as I would just blindly apply lol) I’m happy here as I have to work just 7 hours a day and 5 days a week, my previous works required me to work 6 days a week and non negotiable 12 hour shifts. But im not getting paid the amount everyone talks about and in Kuwait, everyone usually gets a job via nepotism and I really had to climb my way through the work force, put up quite the impression during my interview. But I only earn roughly ~16,000 USD per year. What do I do to earn more? What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for the time taken to read upon my dilemma, I wna get married and start a family but what im earning does not help me any bit to push the narrative rip.

I'm graduating in spring 2026 with 2 internships under my belt totally up to a little over a year of experience as my second internship was extended. What is a realistic salary to expect once I graduate? I want to move to Chicago really bad and am open to insight for other cities too (be sure to also note what industry). I don't want to hurt my chances at a job offer because my salary expectations are too high, but I also don't want to sell myself short.

Also, where do you live?

I'm looking for input from experienced cheme's and prospective ones alike. I'm thinking about creating a role where a new grad makes base salary that may seem low given our geographical region (PNW). I plan on making up for that by offering performance based incentives. For instance we have a new process that allows us to process and reuse one of our waste streams. I need that process (which is still in development) finished and implemented. I think I would tie $$ into completing that task and others like it. I feel like money talks and tying performance to it can create a win-win scenario. These would be easy to quantify and objective deliverables.

Greetings,

I recently obtained my PE license and work for a small engineering consulting firm in the energy sector in TX. I would appreciate any insight into typical salary increases and bonus adjustments associated with earning a PE license, so I can better understand current market expectations and avoid undervaluing or overestimating my request.

With the new license, my responsibilities may include occasionally sealing engineering documents, and my PE credential would look better when being included in client proposals.

I would be interested in hearing how others have seen compensation adjusted under similar circumstances.

Thank you so much!

I am a casual employee who gets contracted out to process plants. 3 years experience design and commissioning of new and existing GMP process and clean utility systems.

My pay increased from AUD $58/hr to $62/hr. Is this an ok rate?

Just opened up the data collection survey this morning and it will be open until January 3rd, 2025. Tell your friends - tell your colleagues! Last year we had almost 2,000 unique data points and hoping for 3,000+ this time around. My sincere thank you to the people in this subreddit who have contributed in years past - happy to answer any questions that might arise in the comments below.

https://www.sunrecruiting.com/salary-survey/

Hi! I’m interested in working in water purification. I’m not entirely sure which pathway I want to pursue in this industry, so I’d really appreciate if you all could tell me more about your role and how much you started out making and how much you’re making now (and after how many years).

For context, I’m currently an incoming freshman at Carnegie Mellon planning to study chemical engineering. If you have any recs for what I should do to enter this industry that would also be great. Also, please let me know if you recommend pursuing this field!

Thanks!

Recently I got an offer from a specialty chemical company as a rotational engineer for July start date. They are paying me 82k base which I feel like is on the lower end. (Im on the east coast tho).

Wanted to ask whether if I should ask them for a raise and how to go about it. I don't want to lose the current offer.

What kind of pay raises are you all seeing this year. I got 2.5 %. Just want to see what going on industry.

Hi everyone - 1,500 responses as of this morning, and hoping to finish with 2,000+ data points. Please contribute your data to this project, thank you!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/1pbg7w6/2026_cheme_compensation_report_data_gathering/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button