Engineer Salaries in Birmingham

Over 300 maintenance engineer job adverts (in Birmingham) have been analysed by our team between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024. The results are in! We’ve scoured the market to bring you the average salaries for each shift and bias in and around Birmingham.

61% of the job adverts presented the salary as a range. *We used the median of the range for calculations. Salary grading is pretty common at the minute so that explains the amount of ranges. This means it depends on the experience of candidates when confirming what salary they’ll be offered.

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Now, let’s get into it!

Average Salary Around Birmingham – £41,857

This is a nice 2.8% increase since our previous report. But it needs to increase more!

Businesses are spending money on contractors at the moment because they don’t have enough full-time workers. This costs more money and time. It would make more sense to just offer a higher salary to get full-time skilled engineers.

The good news is, that this is significantly higher than the average presented on Indeed – 6.5% more to be exact!

Our average includes all shift types. And Days roles notoriously pay slightly less than shifts that involve unsociable hours. In fact…

*The remaining 12% is accounted for by ads that didn’t state a shift type.

If we exclude ‘Days’ and ‘Monday-Friday’ roles, the average salary is…

If I’m honest, that is really low. You’d need to be paying much higher to get a good engineer to work shifts. And the decrease is just disappointing.

Now let’s look at just ‘Days’ and ‘Monday-Friday’ roles. The average salary for these combined is…

This should at least be £40k. So it’s close. And I’m pleased to see close to a 5% increase over the last 6 months.

Keep reading to see what shifts we are seeing a lot of…

Shift Patterns Around Birmingham

It’s definitely the most common shift – so this is a good reflection. People need a 20% uplift if they’re going to move. About 8-10 grand. 

So, if you want good people, you need to pay more. As people won’t move for a couple of grand. Not necessarily competitive if paying what others pay. You need to pay more to entice engineers to leave their current role and move to your business. 

There is a rich mix of shifts available to engineers in and around Birmingham. Here are some interesting points:  

So, let’s talk about what the most common shifts in this area are paying their engineers on average. We’ve got lots of info for you.

Days (£38,667), Mon – Fri (£39,035) and Mon – Fri Days (£39,382)

Together these shifts make up almost a quarter of the dataset in this area.

These shift patterns are a little deceptive. As they could potentially cover some level of unsociable hours – especially the Mon – Fri shift. So, the fact that the salaries are on the low side is concerning. 

An important takeaway from these: be honest with the hours of work. As in, what times will engineers be working on a Mon-Fri? Will Days be over the weekend? Otherwise, you’ll be wasting engineers time and that will hamper future hiring efforts.    

Afternoons (£38,783) and Panama (47,477)

These two shifts were the least demanded in the area. And, interestingly, they sit at the extremes of the salary range based on shifts.

Afternoons are almost the lowest-paying shift. Paying only £100 more than Days on average.

However, the Panmama shift appeared to be the highest-paying pattern for maintenance engineers around Birmingham. With the average salary being nearly £2k more than the second highest (which was 4-on4-off). It doesn’t surprise me that this shift was paying so well as even though it’s a less common shift, the companies that offer this pattern are usually bigger. It’s underrated to be honest as you get every other weekend off!

Skillsets Around Birmingham

Below are the number of adverts divided into each skillset bias – electrical, mechanical and multi-skilled. From the job adverts we analysed, this was the breakdown. 👇

This does reflect what I’m seeing in the market right now.

In terms of bias, the average salary in order of highest to lowest is:

What I’m seeing at the moment is elec and mech getting paid similarly. Which is reflected in these averages.

More often than not, the elec skillset gets a higher salary than mech. But the market seems to be shifting away from this. Why? Well, bias isn’t necessarily reflective of worth – it depends on where/what industry they’ve served time.

It’s quite surprising that multi-skilled engineers are getting paid the lowest out of the bunch. As they can turn their hands to either bias, their skills are valuable and worth more than the average here.

This same trend is found when calculating the shift vs. days salary average for each bias:

Here’s a bias average breakdown for SHIFT roles:

It makes sense that they’re all quite similar to each other. But there definitely needs to be an increase in order to get people. Top engineers aren’t moving to a new business for a couple of grand – and you’ll definitely struggle to expand your team with these salaries for shift work.

Here’s a bias average breakdown for DAYS roles:

Not surprised to see the elec average here. But mech and multi 100% need to be higher. Any good engineer would be after at least £40k for days, regardless of their skillset bias.

Hope to see these all increasing over the next 6 months! Will be interesting to go over it all again in September.

Summary

The increases aren’t anywhere near where I expected. But at least there has been some increase in salaries around Birmingham. I know that it’s something that I’m working on with a lot of my clients to ensure that they attract the best talent on the market.

I expect to see salaries RISE over the next 6 months. Not just because of inflation, but because of how the role of the engineer in the area is changing. I’m seeing more and more companies adapt their Maintenance Engineer positions to focus on why things break down. Looking at how to prevent the machines from breaking, rather than continuing to react when it’s too late. With this, comes a different skillset and more critical thinking. So, naturally, this will increase salaries.

If you are paying close to these salaries (or maybe £5k more than these averages) then you’re still going to struggle. Lots of engineers I speak to are looking for more, with many asking for well above £50,000 for some shifts (like 4 on 4 off alternating between days and nights). 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Good engineers won’t move for a £2,000 or £3,000 pay rise, they want (and need really) more.  

What to do next?

This blog summarises the interesting points gathered from our research. To see everything we found in more detail, download the guide today.

In the meantime, you should check out the Maintenance Engineer jobs we have in the West Midlands – we have new roles every day for you!