PSMJ Resources, Inc.’s just-released 2025 AE Management & Staff Compensation Model gives us an inside look at the latest data on compensation trends in our industry. With data collected in January and February of 2025, this is the freshest AE compensation benchmarking data available right now. So, what are we seeing? What are some new and noteworthy findings?
First off, at the entry-level, it is clear that the market for Electrical Engineers remains particularly scarce with a median salary of $73,751 for entry-level Electrical Engineers. This is a whopping 23% higher than entry-level architects (at a median value of just $60,000) – up from a 19% delta between these two positions in last year’s data set. Of course, this stands to reason as firms trying to attract Electrical Engineers aren’t just competing with other consulting engineering firms…they are also competing with the likes of Tesla, NVIDIA, and others outside the AEC space!
The following summarizes median entry-level base salaries for various popular positions:
Overall Median Entry-Level Base Salary Values (in USD)
- Architect: $60,000
- Civil Engineer: $70,150
- Mechanical Engineer: $71,110
- Structural Engineer: $72,000
- Environmental Engineer: $73,300
- Electrical Engineer: $73,751
Moving up the organization chart, Project Managers have been a tough-to-fill role for many firms lately as backlog has been high and client expectations even higher. Our 2025 data show a median base salary for Project Managers at $111,318 (a 3.2% increase from last year). Performance bonuses for Project Managers remain close to flat with last year at a median value of $8,000 (compared to $8,221 last year).
In response to popular demand this year, we added the position of Chief Innovation Officer/Director of Innovation. As you might expect, this role is largely the domain of firms with more than 250 employees. The median base salary for this role is $205,004, a sign that firms are better big on innovation as this is not too far behind the overall median base salary for the Chief Executive Officer role of $225,000 (though a bit further behind the $278,195 CEO base salary for 251-500 employees and well behind the $385,008 for 500+ employees).
We’ll be doing a deeper dive on compensation trends soon when we perform our annual analysis of data from firms that participated in both the 2024 and 2025 AE Compensation Benchmark Surveys. This will give a much clearer picture of year-over-year changes. Stay tuned for that and for the release of our 2025 AE Bonus & Benefits Plans Benchmark Survey Report in July with new data on hybrid work patterns and more. And, as always, remember to never adjust salaries without also adjusting fees and billing rates!
To learn more and download your copy of the 2025 AE Management & Staff Compensation Benchmark Model, visit www.psmj.com/surveys. This Excel-based model allows you to easily sort data by firm size and other peer groups as well as adjust for inflation and location (using built-in location adjustment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).