How many hours do engineers work?
April 18, 2020
By: Lisandro Vazquez, PE
Engineering is a professional field with a large diversity of working environments and working hours; however, if you’re considering a role as an engineer working in a design firm there are some “norms” regarding hours & schedule which apply across the board for the most part. In this article, we’ll discuss:
- How many hours per week do engineers typically work?
- What is an engineer’s schedule like?
- What sort of work-life balance can I expect as an engineer?
Engineering is a professional field with a large diversity of working environments and working hours; however, if you’re considering a role as an engineer working in a design firm there are some “norms” regarding hours & schedule which apply across the board for the most part. In this article, we’ll discuss:
- How many hours per week do engineers typically work?
- What is an engineer’s schedule like?
- What sort of work-life balance can I expect as an engineer?
Hours per week:
~40-45 hours a week seems to be about the standard workweek for salaried engineers in an office environment (U.S.), though temporary jumps to 50+ hours should be anticipated. These hours of course will depend on many factors such as your level of experience, your firm, and your specific role.
CAD technicians, administrative staff, and other typically “hourly” positions may call for around 40 hours a week whereas engineers are usually “expected” to work a few extra hours.
My personal experience as a Mechanical Engineer has been closer to an average of 45-50 hours a week, but it’s fair to mention that this has been somewhat of a choice. I have never been REQUIRED or MANDATED to work more than 45 hours a week by the engineering firms I have worked for. If my company’s workload increases I will typically scale up my hours to match—to a limited extent.
AVERAGE:
40-45 HR/WEEK
MY EXPERIENCE:
45-50 HR/WEEK
If the company asks for additional hours temporarily, I immediately increase my hours barring any personal circumstances which may take precedence. This, of course, has some qualifications. I will NOT indefinitely work increased hours if it appears that my company has no plan for reducing hours or no clear idea when the surge will lessen. If the workload keeps going up, but my company’s management is actively recruiting and hiring skilled personnel, then I will continue to work the increased hours because I can see that management is taking tangible steps towards normalizing hours.
In my view, as long as the company is transparent and direct about how they intend on tackling the increased workload, I will give them the benefit of the doubt temporarily.
If you, like me, provide design work related to the construction industry, you can certainly expect to have ups and downs in hours which reflect the cyclical trends in the construction industry.3
When there is a big surge in construction, most design firms “can’t hire people fast enough” to keep pace with the new work coming in. There is almost always a delay in getting new employees up-to-speed regardless of experience level; and, sometimes management may determine that a particular surge will likely be short-lived and therefore opt to not hire additional staff during these times.
So… each member of the design staff is asked to pitch in extra hours to handle the surge. This is where it’s nice to work for a company that pays overtime for exempt salaried employees (Not sure what this means? Check out my article “Salary, the full story—how you could be missing out on your full earnings” for a brief overview on overtime, exempt status, and other pay related topics).
During these surges in activity I’ve worked weeks consistently at 50 hours with occasional 60 hour weeks, though the latter are exceptions.
Your company may try to keep morale up during the longer weeks by reminding you of potential bonuses at the end of the year or some other form of incentive (if not… you should seriously question how/if your company is incentivizing your extra time).
Again, this is totally dependent upon your specific employer. One thing to consider regarding the end-of-year bonus is that there is not always a direct correlation to the overall yearly profitability of a firm with the total hours worked (the assumption is that your firm bases bonuses weighted higher on profitability as opposed to gross revenue). There are just so many factors that play into this.
Even if your firm bases end-of-year bonuses on meeting gross revenue targets with lesser regard to profitability (maybe a “growing” firm), how can you be sure that your 50 or 60 hour weeks in March don’t become a “wash” at the end of the year because maybe October through December were slow for business?
For me, overtime pay is THE BEST real-time motivation because you are guaranteed to receive some additional compensation for your time. The end-of-year bonus is more of a longer term retention incentive.
In further exploration of how to view these surges in hours, another form of “compensation” to think of is the health of the organization that employs you. If the company needs people to pitch in a little extra for a month or two, you’ve got to take into consideration that this is likely in your best interest as a means to support a strong business. Sure, it’s not exactly a great way to get super excited to work harder but it’s still important.
What if these surges aren’t temporary though? What if they seem to last for endless months? In this case, you should seriously evaluate what’s going on in the “big picture” at your company.
Why aren’t we hiring new people, or enough people?
Why are we working so many hours with no clear end in sight?
Is there a deficiency in management, training, or tools which is reducing efficiency?
What can I do to affect a solution?
What can I do to reduce hours while maintaining productivity?
Sometimes it’s just a systemic weakness without an easy fix or without key personnel having an appetite for change. If this is the situation, and if you don’t have clear authority to affect positive changes or if others are overly resistant to change, then you might want to seek other job opportunities.
That being said, most engineers do not work slavish hours month after month after month, year after year. Again, ~40-45 hours a week is a good target, with some periodic fluctuations.
One additional factor affecting your hours is the specific type of engineering work you do. For example, if your work is conducted primarily on jobsites, or requires travelling, you will likely work more than 40-45 hours per week—maybe significantly more—if you count travel time. Or, if you’re an engineer in the technical sales field your hours may be highly variable especially if your pay structure is based heavily on commissions.
What is an engineer’s work schedule like?
Ok, so 40-45 hours per week is about typical for engineers in an office environment—with periodic jumps to 50 hours—but what about the actual schedule? Though normal business hours of ~8am to ~4-5pm Monday through Friday is standard, many firms allow a certain level of flexibility by establishing a set of core hours. Essentially, a company may develop a policy that designates—for example—9am to 4pm as the hours in which all engineering/design personnel must be either in the office or working on a jobsite.
Part of the intent for these core hours is to achieve balance in allowing for flexibility in employees’ schedules while ensuring that customers’ needs will be met during the business day.
One of the benefits of this is that it allows you to either show up a little early and leave a little early, or sleep in later but stay later. Better yet, if these core hours are reduced on Fridays you may be able to “front-load” your schedule Monday through Thursday, perhaps working 8.5-9 hours per day, so that you can go home early on Fridays.
On the other hand, if you’re in a larger city this may provide you with the opportunity to shift your schedule based on rush hour traffic patterns to save yourself some commuting time. This saves me about half an hour every single day… 250roundtrips/yr x 0.5hr/trip x 1d/24hr = 5.2 full days’ worth of driving time saved per year!
If you’re an engineer in a technical sales role you might have the opportunity to build a highly flexible schedule in which you have a greater level of autonomy on setting meeting dates with clients, grouping meetings based on geographic proximity, or front-loading your schedule at the beginning of the week so that Thursdays or Fridays are shorter.
FREE
ON
FRIDAYS?
Further, if your sales position requires a substantial amount of travel then you likely have the option of conducting a fair share of work remotely, perhaps from home (depends on company). With a traveling sales position, though, your specific schedule is likely to be much less predictable than the design engineer’s; but, you’ve got more flexibility.
What sort of work life balance can I expect as an engineer?
While the typical hours mentioned earlier coupled with the office environment may lead some to view the engineer’s job as “fixed” or “confined” or something along those lines, that is not exactly the case. Sure, the occasional 50+ hours a week can be a drag. Sure, if your company’s average workweek for engineers is 45 hours rather than 40, it could get old.
But, this does not mean you have to become a slave to your job at the expense of your personal life. The extent of this will be based upon your personal preferences and willingness to negotiate a change in circumstances.
Keep in mind, most engineers and engineering managers are people like you and your particular supervising engineer or boss likely traveled a similar path to the one you are currently on; they just started their journey earlier or advanced more quickly. So, they understand the work, are intimately familiar with the effort required to complete jobs, and know which specific tasks must be completed to execute a job or project.
This may open the opportunity for you to negotiate an exception to the standard work schedule based on your personal circumstances. To learn more, check out my article “How to Improve Work Life Balance: 9 Ways from Easiest to Hardest.”
Overall
The big takeaway here is that an engineering job is a professional level position. As such, you’ll have more varied responsibilities than lower-skilled or non-technical hourly personnel, so it’s fair to assume that your hours will likely not be a fixed 40 hours per week, every week, for all of time. Though if that is what you want, you can probably arrange it for yourself; but it’s not the norm.
40-45 hours per week, Monday through Friday, 7-4 or 8-5 is pretty standard. As you’ve read here, there is plenty of wiggle room and there are definitely opportunities for you to customize your schedule. And, from what I’ve seen in the industry recently (U.S.) there appears to be a trend in which engineering employers are becoming more apt to incorporate flexible hours policies and are placing a greater focus on employee well-being.
Like many things in life, your hours and your schedule are what YOU make of them.
Take charge of your career; make it work for YOU!
Check out these other articles from Engineer Q&A:
17 Steps to Become an Engineer — From High School to Professional Engineer (PE)
How to Improve Work Life Balance: 9 Ways from Easiest to Hardest
Mechanical Engineer Salary: What can I expect?
Why Engineering? A Career with an Impact
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