Engineering: Engineering equals satisfaction

 

Chartered engineers are among the happiest professionals in the UK, a new survey says.

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According to the City & Guilds Happiness Index, which is compiled annually to track the satisfaction of the country’s workforce, engineers are up 19 positions from 2005 and now occupy the fifth place on the table.

They enjoy their careers more than other white collar (professional) workers, awarding their jobs 8.62 out of ten on the happiness scale.

IT specialists, civil servants, lawyers and pharmacists rate their happiness as less than 7.55 out of ten. 

Top of the list of reasons for feeling unhappy in their jobs is feeling stressed (55 per cent) and feeling underpaid (35 per cent). 

Clergy and vocational professions, such as beauticians and hairdressers, occupy the top positions in the list.

Encouragingly, workers’ levels of happiness have increased from last year amongst most professions with vocational workers continuing to lead the way in the happiness stakes.

Vocational workers rated their happiness level as 8.3 compared to 8.0 last year while white collar workers rate their happiness level as 8.0 compared to 7.6 last year.

"It is great to see that workers in all careers are happier than they were last year," said Keith Brooker, director of group markets and products at City & Guilds. 

"Given the time that we spend in the workplace, finding a career that we are happy with - whether in a white-collar or vocational profession – should be everyone’s priority."

The research was undertaken by The Survey Shop in March 2006 and is based on a sample of 1,301 employees in 610 academic professions and 691 in vocational occupations throughout the UK.

Respondents were asked to grade their level of happiness on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being very unhappy and 10 being very happy.  

A mean score was calculated which has been used as the measure of happiness.

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