Industrial engineers are below average when it comes to happiness.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, industrial engineers rate their career happiness 2.9 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 23% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy industrial engineers are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Drafter | 2.9 | $45k |
| Chemical engineer | 2.9 | $91k |
| Nuclear engineer | 2.9 | $85k |
| Command and control center specialist | 2.9 | $37k |
| Environmental engineer | 2.9 | $60k |
| Industrial engineer | 2.9 | $61k |
| Operations research analyst | 2.9 | $65k |
| Power engineer | 2.8 | $68k |
| Industrial production manager | 2.8 | $59k |
| Sales engineer | 2.8 | $78k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are industrial engineers happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do industrial engineers find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as industrial engineers?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are industrial engineer’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are industrial engineers making the best use of their abilities?
Are industrial engineers happy with their salary?
Industrial engineers rated their satisfaction with their salaries 3.3/5. Few are explicitly unhappy with their salaries, with most industrial engineers having generally positive views of their salary.
We asked industrial engineers how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
405 industrial engineers
16% of industrial engineers rated their compensation 5 stars
32% of industrial engineers rated their compensation 4 stars
26% of industrial engineers rated their compensation 3 stars
16% of industrial engineers rated their compensation 2 stars
10% of industrial engineers rated their compensation 1 stars
Do industrial engineers find their jobs meaningful?
On average, industrial engineers rate the meaningfulness of their work a 2.6/5. The majority of industrial engineers struggle to find any sort of meaning in their work, likely resulting in less satisfaction with the career overall.
We asked industrial engineers how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
2.6 out of 5 stars
407 industrial engineers
12% of industrial engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
13% of industrial engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
25% of industrial engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
24% of industrial engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
27% of industrial engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as industrial engineers?
Industrial engineers rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of industrial engineers find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked industrial engineers how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
478 industrial engineers
22% of industrial engineers rated their career fit 5 stars
39% of industrial engineers rated their career fit 4 stars
22% of industrial engineers rated their career fit 3 stars
14% of industrial engineers rated their career fit 2 stars
3% of industrial engineers rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is an industrial engineer’s work environment?
As a whole, industrial engineers rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.3/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked industrial engineers how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
475 industrial engineers
15% of industrial engineers rated their work environment 5 stars
31% of industrial engineers rated their work environment 4 stars
29% of industrial engineers rated their work environment 3 stars
17% of industrial engineers rated their work environment 2 stars
8% of industrial engineers rated their work environment 1 stars
Are industrial engineers making the best use of their abilities?
Former industrial engineers on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 3.0/5. Industrial engineers tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked industrial engineers how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
3.0 out of 5 stars
474 industrial engineers
13% of industrial engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
22% of industrial engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
28% of industrial engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
24% of industrial engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
13% of industrial engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars