How much do petroleum engineers earn?

Petroleum engineers are one of the best paid professionals around. In order to give you some idea of what petroleum engineers are worth, i would like to quote the salaries reported by the SPE members in a salary survey conducted by Western Management Group for the SPE. More than 10,000 SPE members participated in the 2007 survey.

The results showed the average base salary of respondents worldwide was USD 122,458, an increase from the USD 116,834 in the 2006 survey. Additional compensation, such as bonuses, housing allowances, car allowances, and retirement contributions raised total average compensation for 2007 to USD 167,712. The chart below illustrates the regional differences observed in base salary and total compensation. On average, SPE members reported receiving an 8.3% increase in base pay. The average age of respondents was 43 and the average number of years in the industry was 18.

Now all these numbers are really exciting for the students and young professionals embarking a career in this field. However i would like to advise all of my colleagues to keep their feet firmly on the ground. Because at the end of the day you are paid for what you are worth. It takes a lot of dedication, motivation and sacrifices to reach the top no matter how intelligent and talented you may be. Therefore although i am pleased to know that my potential future income could be as high as USD 122,458 p.a., i also realize that i need to be worthy of receiving such a salary.

You can download the highlights of the 2007 SPE salary survey (in pdf format) from here. The full report can be purchased from the SPE website.