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Among Class of 2019 engineering graduates earning bachelor’s degrees, chemical engineering majors are projected to have the highest starting salary, according to NACE’s Winter 2019 Salary Survey. However, it’s important to note that it is early in the Class of 2019 salary-reporting cycle and not all majors met the 20-salary threshold to be considered for the highest starting salary at this point.

Among those engineering majors with 20 or more reported salaries, chemical engineering majors have the highest average projected salary at $72,889. They are followed by electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software engineering, and computer engineering majors. (See Figure 1.)

The Winter 2019 Salary Survey contains annual salary projections for Class of 2019 college graduates. Data from the survey were obtained by surveying NACE employer members from August 1, 2018, through December 3, 2018. A total of 186 surveys were returned for a 20 percent response rate. The Winter 2019 Salary Survey report is available to members in MyNACE. An executive summary report is available at http://www.naceweb.org/research/reports/.  

Figure 1: Projected Top-Paid Class of 2019 Engineering Majors at the Bachelor’s-Degree Level*