Circuit designer vs controls designer

The differences between circuit designers and controls designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a circuit designer and a controls designer. Additionally, a circuit designer has an average salary of $105,618, which is higher than the $91,944 average annual salary of a controls designer.

The top three skills for a circuit designer include cadence, analog and RF. The most important skills for a controls designer are PLC, control panels, and IDS.

Circuit designer vs controls designer overview

	Circuit Designer	Controls Designer
Yearly salary	$105,618	$91,944
Hourly rate	$50.78	$44.20
Growth rate	3%	3%
Number of jobs	44,611	79,729
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 53%
Average age	45	45
Years of experience	6	6

Circuit designer vs controls designer salary

Circuit designers and controls designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Circuit Designer	Controls Designer
Average salary	$105,618	$91,944
Salary range	Between $79,000 And $139,000	Between $69,000 And $121,000
Highest paying City	Mountain View, CA	San Jose, CA
Highest paying state	California	Rhode Island
Best paying company	Apple	Visteon
Best paying industry	Manufacturing	Technology

Differences between circuit designer and controls designer education

There are a few differences between a circuit designer and a controls designer in terms of educational background:

	Circuit Designer	Controls Designer
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 53%
Most common major	Electrical Engineering	Electrical Engineering
Most common college	Stanford University	Carnegie Mellon University

Circuit designer vs controls designer demographics

Here are the differences between circuit designers' and controls designers' demographics:

	Circuit Designer	Controls Designer
Average age	45	45
Gender ratio	Male, 66.9% Female, 33.1%	Male, 86.5% Female, 13.5%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 4.9% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.4% Asian, 16.6% White, 62.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 4.8% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 11.0% Asian, 17.7% White, 61.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between circuit designer and controls designer duties and responsibilities

Circuit designer example responsibilities.

Manage and assign company facilities and assets through the use of: circuit reports, manual logs and PC generate reports.
Configure, document, and support routers, switches, and VPN.
Used handheld computers and pressure gauges.
Test and measurement of various RF circuits.
Develop schematic & PCB footprints for component library.
Transition to in-circuit testing of complete circuit boards.

Controls designer example responsibilities.

Establish communication links and prepare machines for bench-testing to attain UL certification.
Engineer, draft, modify PLC programs and HMI programs, create schematics, test software with customer to their satisfaction.
Create the simulation with SolidWorks.
Create and deploy disk images for latest SolidWorks releases as needed.
Develop applications for HVAC, semiconductor, industrial coatings, medical, and renewable and sustainable industries.
Lead designer assign to smaller projects at various plants dealing with instrumentation, PLS and DCS upgrades / modifications.

Circuit designer vs controls designer skills

Common circuit designer skills

Cadence, 11%
Analog, 10%
RF, 7%
MATLAB, 7%
IP, 6%
CMOS, 5%

Common controls designer skills

PLC, 12%
Control Panels, 6%
IDS, 6%
Auto CAD, 6%
I/O, 5%
UL, 4%