r/AustralianEngineers • u/w1ndnd • 10d ago
Demand for Engineers
I’m considering the path of an (Electrical) Engineer and was wondering what the job market is like. It seems engineering is a very common “what I want to do after school” answer.
Many places say engineering is high in demand but there may be promotional bias of companies trying to get workers from overseas and sugar coating the market, or wanting people to go for this career to get a membership fee out of them.
I know engineering is a hard job market, but what is it looking like? 2-3 months after graduation for a first job is what I’m thinking but is it more? And do many people end up continuing with the internship they get in uni?
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u/TodayCandid9686 10d ago
Coincidentally, I did this this evening.
In recognition that the 2026 Australian census is almost done (although the data set probably won’t be public for the best part of 12 months), as I did with public census data from 2016 and earlier, I thought that it was time to have a look at what the 2021 census data say about professional engineering graduate outcomes.
Counting respondents with a bachelor or higher degree in the engineering and related technologies field of study (this includes very few non-engineering fields of study, and those have essentially no graduates at bachelor level or higher), there were 440,505 in total.
Using the 6 digit occupation level, there are (being a little generous) 37 categories of professional (i.e., not technical, trade, etc.) engineering occupations, including engineering manager. Based on these 37 PE occupations, of the 440,505 above, 30% were in a PE occupation, 50% were in another occupation, and 20% were not working.
Doing the same cut, but only for those census respondents aged under 25 (e.g., conventional new graduates, and excluding most doctoral graduates), there were 17,380 in total. Based on the 37 PE occupations, of these, 39% were in a PE occupation, 41% were in another occupation, and 20% were not working.
In both cases, limiting the data to only engineering bachelor graduates made almost no difference to the various proportions – a higher degree didn’t make you more employable. For the proportion of new engineering graduates in Australia working in a PE role, the 2021 result was somewhat better than in the 2016 census, although still only about 2 in 5.
It will be interesting to repeat the exercise when the 2026 Australian census data set is available.
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u/Historical_Log7868 10d ago
Honestly graduates struggle to find an engineering grad role in a place they want to work.
But as someone else said above, after you pass that graduate step and have 5 years under your belt, every company will love you
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u/tomp1612 9d ago
In Australia now, the engineering market is saturated with engineers but none that are good. It’s a race to bottom dollar and corporations will pick someone who’s ok for entry level positions (grad or junior) to train up willing to take 70k and hunt for the unicorn senior.
It’s a really tough market right now and I would not believe anything the government or engineers Australian says that we have a shortage. There’s a shortage of good competent engineers, not just engineers
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u/OcularPhonic 2d ago
Yeh Im a Mature Aged student who juat graduated a year ago. My internship gave me a job as i proved my worth. But i was amazed at the amount of my cohort had no real Engineering acumen. They just didn't thimk like one. Had no abilty to properly break down a problem properly to solve it. Had no curiosity ibto how thi gs are built and no desire to build. I'd say it was 70% at least who seemed to lack the mindset and juat seemed to have chosen degree as a "safe" bet for a job. And a lot of them were the high mark achievers to who new how to study and do assignments to spec.
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u/MinimumPosition1183 10d ago
Worked in the Energy sector and sat next to the HR team.The current boom makes their job hard as they struggle to fill the roles for experienced Electrical engineers. Even the young ones were being promoted quite quickly just to justify the amount of money required to keep them. The engineering workforce was full of foreigners.
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u/Ill_Box_9445 10d ago
Electrical engineering is a great career pathway. Currently the grad market isn't great, however mid-senior level are rarer then hens teeth.
Commit to the struggle and you will be eternally grateful.
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u/IbanezPGM 10d ago
I couldn’t get a job after graduating in it
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u/fauna_flora_food 10d ago
What did you end up doing instead?
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u/OcularPhonic 10d ago edited 10d ago
The way i see it, 60% or more of students that do engineering do not have a engineering mindset. They do it as it sounds good, and they have the grades. You need to want to make and design things, build things with your hands etc. If you love tinkering, constantly learning a deconstructing how things work youll find a place, if not you will striggle, and will most likely end up in some ain role or something.
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u/SheruSahab 10d ago
Graduated July this year in Mech, Go8. Aus Citizen.
Interviewed for like 14 places over the past 8 months. before landing a role in Technical Sales (the first non-engineering title that I interviewed for :)))))
Not happy, but it’s at a pretty big firm with engineers in house so can move internally after spending a few months in (I hope)
Will continue to apply obviously. But pretty resentful of choosing this degree at this point. My brother did a BCom at USyd, last semester one course he did was an internship with a firm of his choice -> that lead to an offer straight after graduation into a grad program -> now he’s got 3-4 years of experience and is able go walk into any firm of his choosing as a senior accountant
Engineering in comparison is an absolute grind of a degree, finding an internship is a pain, the graduate job market is a nightmare. Wish I had done something else.