In a nutshell, job satisfaction has increased among automation professionals with more than 80% indicating they are satisfied with their job – although these days some level of satisfaction can come from just having a job at all.

Participants of this survey work in 40 different industry segments with the majority being in the Engineering Services segment. Job functions of respondents ran the gamut from Application Engineering, to Consulting Engineering, to Facilities Management, to Plant Engineering to Sales to Training & Education, as well as many others in between. More than 69% of respondents had a college degree or higher.

For you news bite junkies here are the highlights:

• Average Salary for respondents in the U.S. for 2010 was $99,540; in Canada, $101,646.
• The Top Five highest paid job functions were: Consulting Engineering,
  Engineering Management, Safety Systems Engineering, General or Operations
  Management; Project Management
• Salary for those who completed a graduate degree was the highest; those who had started but not completed a graduate program commanded only a marginal salary increase so clearly it pays to finish what you start here.
• By industry segment, the highest average salaries were in Utilities – Pipelines except Natural Gas; in descending order the next highest were Oil & Gas Extraction, Petroleum Refining & Related Industries, Engineering Services, Utilities Combo (Nuclear/Fossil Fuel, etc.),Valves, Fittings, Fabricated Metal Products
• By U.S. Region, the top salaried region is the Pacific West at an average of $101,877 and the lowest the West North Central Midwest at $93,240
• By Degree, Electrical Engineering degrees were the highest earners at $109,492 and Liberal Arts the lowest at $91,000 just below IT at $100,000
• The average salary for males was $100,422; for females $87,351
• Professionals who were members of industry organizations pulled in higher salaries than those who were not
• In a change from previous years, the average salary of independent contractors was almost identical to that of direct employees – previously independents received a few thousand dollars more per year
• More than 30% of respondents say they will retire in the next 10 years and almost 14% in the next five years
• Unsurprisingly, many respondents feel much greater pressure to increase productivity and reduce costs
• The top four most important benefits cited by respondents were: health insurance,pension plans/401K, flexible working hours, and paid time off
• Average vacation time: 3 weeks per year
• Most respondents clocked between 41-45 hours perweek work time

There’s more detailed information in this survey so for those of you who are either highly analytical or visual, here’s the link for a ton of nifty charts and graphs on the Automation.com website. For the full article go to the InTech.com website.

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