Engineering Salary Trends In The Petroleum Industry
Authors: JOCHEN V.A. , Frailey S.M. 
Published: December 2007

Results of the annual SPE Member Salary Survey indicate that salaries are up 5% compared to salaries reported in October 1994. Results of the 1996 SPE Starting Salary Survey reflect a stabilization in starting salaries accepted by BS graduates in petroleum engineering at $3,500/month as compared to a year ago.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is twofold:to report the results of the 1996 SPE Starting Salary Survey for petroleum engineering graduates entering the petroleum industry from September 1995 through August 1996 andto report the results of the annual SPE Member Salary Survey based on data collected in October 1995.

We looked at the trends for both starting salaries for recent graduates and salaries for SPE members in various sectors of the petroleum industry, and we compare these salary data to those from prior years.

As the authors of this paper, we merely present the results of both the SPE Starting Salary Survey and the annual SPE Member Salary Survey as additional data points in the trends on salaries. We do not forecast future salary points and strongly suggest that, if you do, you should use the multiyear trends as a part of your assessment and recognize the hazards of extrapolating one-year differentials.

SPE Starting Salary Survey

The SPE Starting Salary Survey is conducted each year by the SPE's Engineering Workforce Supply & Demand Committee. The 1996 survey was sent to all colleges and universities offering four year undergraduate degrees in petroleum engineering. This year, 15 schools responded to the survey. The 1996 survey includes base salary offers accepted by B.S., M.S. and Ph.D petroleum engineering graduates between September 1995 and August 1996. There was very limited data on Ph.D graduates during this time period. Table 1 shows the range of salary offers for B.S. and M.S. degree candidates.

The median salary accepted by graduates having B.S. degrees was $3,500/month or $42,000/year. The median salary accepted by graduates having M.S. degrees was $3,9l7/month or $47,000/year.

Fig. 1 shows the starting salary trend for B.S. graduates in petroleum engineering since 1983. These data are not available for M.S. graduates. Starting salaries remained essentially flat for 1983 through 1988. Starting salaries increased 27.3% between 1988 and 1992, from $2,750/month to $3,500/month. The $3,500/month salary figure reported for 1996 represents an extension of a plateau which started in 1992.

SPE Member Salary Survey

Demographics. The annual SPE Member Salary Survey is conducted each year by the Society's Engineering Workforce Supply & Demand Committee to provide the membership with information on salary trends in the petroleum industry. The survey form requesting data was distributed with the member dues statement mailing in October 1995. In all, 11,248 members contributed data to the October 1995 survey, compared to 7,496 in 1994. The annual SPE survey is the largest survey of petroleum industry engineering salaries of which we are aware. The data were sorted and filtered to exclude data processing errors and misinterpreted responses by the members.