How many hours do you work per week? 31

[curiousmechanical]

Hello All,

I recently spoke with an old college friend and he said that he was working 60 to 70 hours per week. I feel this is way above average, but not unheard of. Anyway, this got me thinking...

I see a lot of salary surveys in trade magazines (Machine Design, Design News, etc.), but they rarely talk about hours worked. In fact, the only time I remember seeing any stats was in a Design News article back in 2008 (see attached). They reported the following:

Average = 49 hours
Median = 46 hours

I think this is important information to have. We need to know what the market trends are in order to know what is expected of us, stay competitive, and make sure we are not taken advantage of.

Would you guys like to trade stats? At the end, I'll work up our numbers.

I'll start us off. I think it would be useful to mention dicipline, region, and company size.

Mechanical Engineer
New Jersey, USA
Average = 45 hrs/week and 3 or 4 Saturdays a year

 

[ScottyUK]

Northern England
Electrical power
50-ish hours a week
Salaried.

In the current economic climate I'm grateful to have a reasonably well-paid job and to work with a good bunch of people. I don't work too many weekends and evenings / nights at present although that's likely to change as a big project moves forward.


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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!