Engineering hiring trends, in-demand jobs & top salaries: 2025
Engineers in just about any role are not worried about finding a job right now. The ratio of job openings to engineers today is about 3-1 and that’s down from last year when there were seven listings for every candidate.1 While the market has cooled slightly, companies are still on the hunt for top talent in a variety of positions from project management to mechanical and electrical engineers.
As energy, oil, and gas industries post record profits, they also face an engineering talent drought even as it works to tackle climate change and the transition from fossil fuel to alternative energy sources. Manufacturers will need to fill over 30,000 new engineering jobs by 2029 across every sector from healthcare and automotive to aerospace and defense.2 Construction is also hot – especially high-level engineering management roles.
Compensation continues to be the primary factor for engineering talent, necessitating competitive offers from employers. While candidates have been showing increased openness to new opportunities, there’s still a noticeable hesitancy, likely due to the tighter market. Employers are also being extra cautious before they make an offer. Despite this, time-to-hire rates are continuing to improve.
“Our hiring cycle over the past year have improved about 25% – we’re at about 30-45 days from the time we receive a job to the day a candidate accepts an offer.”
Ed Meindl, Regional Vice President, Addison Group
Double down on culture
Hesitation on the part of both employers and candidates may be due to the engineering hiring frenzy over the past couple of years which led to hires that haven’t always been successful. Some companies who hired out-of-state candidates for fully remote jobs have reported negative results from those decisions. Today, companies and employees are taking much more time to evaluate the right fit. Longer interview processes have become the norm – moving from 2 interviews to as many as 8 interviews with multiple team members. In some cases, this has resulted in companies losing a strong candidate to another company that moves faster.
Welcome to the new normal
As companies look to rebuild culture, more are also steering away from totally remote positions to a combination of on-site jobs or some form of hybrid workplace where employees work in-office one to two days a week to meet and socialize with co-workers. Addison Group is seeing 70% of companies bringing work completely back into the office and 30% settling into a hybrid model. As companies bring more people back to the office, they are also focusing more on promoting benefits packages in addition to competitive salaries to lure candidates.
In-demand roles
- Project Management Engineer
- Mechanical Engineer
- Chemical Engineer
- Electrical Engineer
Highest-paid Engineering salaries
| COO Engineering Services | $292,321 |
| VP of Engineering Services | $257,224 |
| COO Chief Operating Officer | $254,193 |
| COO Manufacturing | $252,294 |
| VP of Manufacturing | $192,521 |
| Director of Engineering Services | $188,066 |
| Chemical Engineering Manager | $186,981 |
| Electrical Engineering Manager | $179,712 |
| Director | $171,334 |
| Industrial Engineering Manager | $171,206 |
| Civil Engineering Manager | $167,005 |
| Process Engineering Manager | $160,139 |
| Manager Engineering Services | $159,581 |
| Manufacturing Manager | $148,704 |
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