There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a research chief engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $39.24 an hour? That's $81,617 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 5,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many research chief engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, math skills and mechanical skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a research chief engineer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 40.0% of research chief engineers included r, while 9.1% of resumes included project management, and 7.3% of resumes included new technologies. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the research chief engineer job title. But what industry to start with? Most research chief engineers actually find jobs in the manufacturing and professional industries.
If you're interested in becoming a research chief engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 25.3% of research chief engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 36.7% of research chief engineers have master's degrees. Even though most research chief engineers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a research chief engineer. When we researched the most common majors for a research chief engineer, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on research chief engineer resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a research chief engineer. In fact, many research chief engineer jobs require experience in a role such as research engineer. Meanwhile, many research chief engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as research assistant or senior research engineer.
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Ann Arbor, MI
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Austin, TX
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a research chief engineer. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Alaska, and New York. Research chief engineers make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $96,258. Whereas in Connecticut and Alaska, they would average $95,725 and $95,167, respectively. While research chief engineers would only make an average of $94,218 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Massachusetts
$96,259
Avg. Salary
2. Connecticut
$95,725
Avg. Salary
3. Texas
$93,793
Avg. Salary