Electrical Engineer jobs: skills, pay and how to get hired

Updated 5 Nov 2026. Figures from the jobs in our search, not the whole market.

In short

Electrical engineers design circuits, boards, power and control systems, prove them in the lab, and make sure they are safe and pass their tests.
Ads ask for PLC programming in automation, circuit and board design in electronics, C or C++ for embedded work, and the safety and EMC standards of the field.
Standards and qualifications differ by country: each country below has its own short section, with remote and hybrid work and pay.
We work the figures out every day from the jobs in our search (as of 5 Nov 2026); our list is not the whole market.

Contents

What an electrical engineer does
The skills the ads ask for
Where the jobs are, country by country
Your CV for an electrical engineer job
How we read our data

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What an electrical engineer does

Electrical engineering covers two worlds that ads often mix. In electronics, engineers design circuits and printed circuit boards, power supplies and the hardware that firmware runs on, and bring them through tests and certification to production. In automation and power, engineers plan control cabinets, program PLCs, size drives and cables, and commission machines and plants on site.

Both need the same habits: a requirement turned into a design, a calculation or simulation, a review, a test that proves it, and the standards that make it safe. Read an ad for the words that show which world it is: "schematic", "layout" and "EMC" for electronics, "TIA Portal", "commissioning" and "control cabinet" for automation. The ladder runs from junior engineer to head of engineering or technical director; see the career paths.

The skills the ads ask for

We read a sample of the ads every day and count the skills they name. On a computer, hover a skill in the text to see its share; on a phone, the table has the same figures.

Skill	Share of ads	What is expected
PLC	9%	Program, test and commission PLCs, often Siemens S7 in TIA Portal, for machines and plants.
AutoCAD	12%	Schematics and panel layouts in an electrical CAD tool such as AutoCAD Electrical or EPLAN.
C++	13%	Read and write C or C++ for microcontrollers: drivers, start-up code and tests on the board.
Python	19%	Scripts for test benches, measurement data and small tools around the lab.
MATLAB	2%	Simulate a control loop, a filter or a power stage, and evaluate measurements.
Quality Management	4%	Work inside the quality system: released schematics, change control, FMEA and 8D.
Project management	12%	Plan a development with its gates, keep the dates and the cost, and report the risks.
Software testing	8%	Plan and run tests of firmware and boards, from bring-up to the production test.
Problem solving	10%	Trace a fault through circuit, layout and firmware until the real cause is found.
Communication skills	18%	Explain a design, a risk or a test result to colleagues who are not electrical engineers.
English	70%	The language of data sheets, standards, tools and most international projects.
German	72%	Asked in most ads in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, for work with teams and plants.

Shares of the electrical engineer ads we read in the last 7 days, as of 5 Nov 2026. Our ads, not the whole market.

In automation ads, PLC programming leads, with electrical CAD for schematics and panels, EPLAN or AutoCAD Electrical. In electronics ads, it is circuit and board design in Altium or KiCad, simulation in MATLAB or SPICE, firmware basics in C or C++, and test scripts in Python. Both ask for testing, quality methods such as FMEA, and project work.

Ads also ask for fault finding and clear explanations. German is asked for in most ads in Germany and Austria; English is the language of data sheets and international projects.

Where the jobs are, country by country

Each country below has its own figures: which cities have the most jobs in our list, whether the number is going up or down, how often ads offer remote or hybrid work, the standards and qualifications of that country, and pay ranges from published research, in the local currency.

Germany

7% of the ads offer hybrid work, and 1% are fully remote.

Pay (Base salary)

Entry level: €41,000 to €52,800 a year
Mid-level: €51,900 to €71,400 a year
Senior: €85,000 to €105,000 a year

Total pay: Payscale gives electrical engineers in Germany bonuses of up to about €25,000 a year.

Mid-level is StepStone's range for engineers in electrical engineering; senior runs from StepStone's figure with experience to Payscale's top tenth for senior engineers, which rests on few salaries. Stuttgart and Hamburg lead StepStone's city figures, Munich Indeed's.

Sources: StepStone: Ingenieur Elektrotechnik (2026), Payscale: electrical engineer (Sep 2026), Payscale: senior electrical engineer (May 2026), Indeed (Oct 2026).

Pay researched on 27 Oct 2026.

Titles: German ads say Elektroingenieur or Ingenieur Elektrotechnik for the engineer, Elektrotechniker for a technician with a further qualification, and Hardwareentwickler for electronics design. Work on electrical installations in Germany needs an Elektrofachkraft, a person qualified under the German accident insurance rules, the DGUV in Germany.

Standards: the VDE, the German association for electrical engineering, publishes the German DIN VDE standards, most of them European or IEC norms adopted for Germany. German plant ads often ask for PLC work in TIA Portal and EPLAN or AutoCAD Electrical.

Job figures as of 5 Nov 2026.

United States

23% of the ads offer hybrid work, and 10% are fully remote.

100% of the ads that say are full-time.

Pay (Base salary)

Entry level: $69,000 to $83,589 a year
Mid-level: $88,263 to $130,000 a year
Senior: $96,000 to $184,300 a year

Total pay: Payscale gives senior electrical engineers bonuses of about $2,000 to $18,000 and profit sharing of about $2,000 to $20,000 a year.

Senior runs from Payscale's senior engineers to the top tenth in the BLS figures of May 2025 for electrical engineers, which earns more than $184,300; electronics engineers sit a little higher in the same figures.

Sources: Payscale: electrical engineer (Oct 2026), Payscale: senior electrical engineer (Oct 2026), BLS, electrical and electronics engineers (May 2025).

Pay researched on 27 Oct 2026.

Licence: a PE licence in the US comes from a state board after the FE and PE exams; it is needed to sign off building and power systems for the public, and many product jobs in the US do not ask for it.

Codes and listings: US installations follow the NEC, the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70) in the US, and many US customers ask for products listed by UL, the US safety body.

Job figures as of 5 Nov 2026.

United Kingdom

Pay (Base salary)

Entry level: £26,000 to £32,451 a year
Mid-level: £37,821 to £59,000 a year
Senior: £39,000 to £61,000 a year

Total pay: Payscale gives UK senior electrical engineers bonuses of about £500 to £9,000 a year.

West London, Manchester and Bristol lead Indeed's city figures.

Sources: Payscale: electrical engineer (Oct 2026), Payscale: senior electrical engineer (Mar 2026), Indeed (Oct 2026).

Pay researched on 27 Oct 2026.

Qualifications and rules: in the UK, CEng, Chartered Engineer, is awarded through the Engineering Council in the UK, most often by the IET, the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology. UK installations follow BS 7671, the UK wiring regulations.

Switzerland

Pay (Base salary)

Entry level: CHF 80,519 to CHF 87,374 a year
Mid-level: CHF 83,033 to CHF 128,633 a year
Senior: CHF 87,374 to CHF 126,000 a year

Total pay: Payscale gives electrical engineers in Switzerland bonuses of about CHF 1,000 to CHF 20,000 a year.

Payscale's Swiss figures date from November 2025 and rest on few salaries; mid-level is Indeed's range. Lucerne leads Indeed's city figures.

Sources: Payscale (Nov 2025), Indeed (Oct 2026).

Pay researched on 27 Oct 2026.

Rules: in Switzerland, the NIV, the Swiss low-voltage installation ordinance, sets who may plan and install electrical systems, and the ESTI, the Swiss inspectorate for heavy current, checks them. Ads ask for German or French and often English.

India

Pay (Base salary)

Entry level: ₹2.05 lakh to ₹4.02 lakh a year
Mid-level: ₹5.77 lakh to ₹8.69 lakh a year
Senior: ₹8.69 lakh to ₹20 lakh a year

Total pay: Payscale gives senior electrical engineers in India bonuses of about ₹19,000 to ₹2.97 lakh a year.

Entry level runs to Payscale's figure for one to four years of work; senior is the senior engineer level, whose figures rest on few salaries.

Sources: Payscale: electrical engineer (Jul 2026), Payscale: senior electrical engineer (Aug 2026).

Pay researched on 27 Oct 2026.

Standards and entry: BIS, the Bureau of Indian Standards, publishes India's electrical norms, many of them based on IEC norms. A B.E. or B.Tech in electrical or electronics engineering is the usual entry in India.

Where the work is: electronics design centres in India design boards and firmware for groups in Europe and the US, so ads there ask for English and the tools of those customers.

Your CV for an electrical engineer job

An electrical engineer's CV meets hiring software first, on the words of the ad, and then a hardware or automation lead who looks for the systems you designed, the tests they passed and your own part in them.

Use the keywords the ads use

Say which world you work in and name its words: "schematic", "PCB layout", "power electronics", "EMC" or "PLC", "TIA Portal", "commissioning". The skills table above shows which keywords the ads use most.
Name the tools with the work: "6-layer boards in Altium", "S7-1500 programs in TIA Portal".
If you hold a licence or chartership, give its exact name; if you are working towards one, add "in progress", as in "CEng, in progress" for the UK.
Name the product type and the standards it met, not the customer, unless it is public.

Prove each skill

An electrical line proves itself with the system, your part and a measured result: efficiency, a test passed first time, faults found, days of commissioning saved.

Skill	Weak line	Strong line, with proof
PLC	PLC programming.	Programmed and commissioned the S7 control of a packaging line in TIA Portal; on-site start-up in 9 days, not 15.
PCB design	PCB design in Altium.	Designed a 4-layer motor controller board in Altium; passed the EMC test at the first attempt.
Power electronics	Power supplies.	Redesigned a 600 W power supply; efficiency from 89 to 94 percent and the fan removed.
Testing	Did testing.	Built a production test for a sensor board in Python; test time per board from 4 minutes to 50 seconds.
Safety	Knowledge of standards.	Led the safety and EMC tests of a device for the EU and US markets; CE file complete and UL listing granted.

Say what was yours in a team design: "I designed", "I programmed", "I tested".

How we read our data

The jobs: the electrical engineer jobs in our job search, matched by title in the same way the search matches them. Our list is not the whole market, so shares and rankings are shown, never counts.
The skills: each day a sample of the ads is read and its skills counted with a fixed word list; only the counts are kept.
Pay: from published salary research, each figure with its source and date, as a range from entry level to senior; our ads are not used for it.
Dates: the figures are worked out again every day and show the day they were worked out.

Frequently asked questions

What does an electrical engineer do?: Designs circuits, boards, power and control systems, proves them by calculation and test, and makes sure they meet the safety and EMC standards of the markets they are sold in.
Electronics or automation: which should I choose?: Electronics means boards, power supplies and firmware in a lab; automation means PLCs, cabinets and commissioning on site. Both are in demand; the ads show which one a job is.
Which tools do ads ask for?: Altium or KiCad for boards, TIA Portal for Siemens PLCs, EPLAN or AutoCAD Electrical for panels, and MATLAB, SPICE or Python for simulation and tests.
Do electrical engineers need a licence?: For product design, rarely. A US PE licence or a UK CEng matters for some power and building work and senior roles.
What should an electrical engineer CV show first?: The systems you designed, the tools and standards you worked with, and two or three measured results, in the words of the ad.

More on the electrical engineer role

The cvscored teamPublished 27 Oct 2026 · Updated 27 Oct 2026

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