So just got an email about the 2012 Augi Salary survey and went on the site to take a look.
All though I am happy to see that I am above the curve per this survey, the numbers sure do make me want to move "down under"

http://www.augi.com/publications/augiworld/issues/

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Todd Hudgins

That's really surprising as the pay in NZ is quite a lot lower in the US. Would not think AUS would be that much higher. Of course it's not a huge sample size either.

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
Free 30 day trial of iPropWiz v5
Follow @seandotson & @mcadforums & @rndautomationon Twitter

Yeah can't see how many responces actually came from AUS. The break down at the beginning of the article does not seem to say.

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Todd Hudgins

Most of our work is in the mining or oil and gas industries, not manufacturing, so there is plenty of cash around if you have experience. I don't think any iron ore jobs even pay that low, most people I know are on $80 per hour or more, not 80k per year. I think if it was a microstation survey you would see a much higher spike in the average earnings. That said there are plenty of drafters on much less but the big earners probably raised the average.

Now me on the other hand got all the experience drafting (in manufacturing, not mining) then went on to be an engineer, starting back on graduate engineers pay.. sometimes I question that decision.

Still, the real money is the unqualified work up north.

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken

Keep in mind that it is AUGI...

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Cory
-----------------------------------
Mechanix Design Solutions
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@mcadguy

Yeah true, isn't is about time they renamed AUGI to BIM(UG) or something similar?..

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken

Todd,
Heh, I said the same thing myself. And, while Bill Adams did tell me that cost of living can be rather high there, Sean is on the right track with the fact that it was a ridiculously small sample size.
There were 169 responses to the survey from Australia, but, only 7 of them came from folks in the Manufacturing field, most of the respondents were in Civil, Structural and Architecture (I would never use this data in a deep statistical analysis, but, if I didn

When I was in Austrailia for three weeks this year I got a good idea of the cost of living and the pay for Manufacturing jobs. I got offered 2.5x my US salary to go down under, but with the cost of living it was almost a wash. Especially since the US dollar down there is worth the same as the Australian dollar. The size of their economy really inflates the prices on things. Inventor itself sells for about 15K I think down there. Inventor Publisher is about 4.3K. A bottle of coke is about 4-5 bucks.

And I know that the Civil and Arch fields do pull easily 280K per year.

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Mark Flayler
Application Engineer - Manufacturing Solutions Division
IMAGINiT's Manufacturing Solutions Blog: http://blogs.rand.com/manufacturing/
Twitter: @mflayler
http://vimeo.com/user1019444

Landing a remote gig from AUS here in the states would be SAWEEET! ...hmmm will have to focus on opportunities down under

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Steve Robbins
Inventor Design Solutions & Innovations
"I believe in being an innovator " - Walt Disney
@_iDSi

Had a friend work in AUS for a few years. He described it as the US, except back in the early 1990s.

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
Free 30 day trial of iPropWiz v5
Follow @seandotson & @mcadforums & @rndautomationon Twitter

Fairly accurate comment there Sean. I was in Florida & San Fransisco in 2005 & found you guys a little in front for a lot of things.

Working in the manufacturing industry, I know we are nowhere near some of the crazy rates people are getting, BUT, I don't have to fly in, fly out; work 3 weeks without seeing the family, live 1000 miles from anywhere in particular!

Manufacturing jobs tend to be going between $60-$80K with a little more if you have a degree. I have seen jobs for senior mechanical designers for $125-$135/hr & heard of structural jobs up to $180/hr but they are usually in Perth (The most isolated capital city in the world).

We have had substantial cost of living increases in the past couple of years, mainly around utilities...I know mine has doubled...it makes you wonder whether you really need the air-con on.

House = $500K (but not in Sydney - more like a unit for this money)
Rental = Good luck finding one!
Utilities = $5K/yr
etc etc

Beedub

Most isolated but also the 8th most liveable city in the world! We have transistor radios and colour TV, it isn't that far behind. Nirvanas Nevermind just came out here a few weeks back too

I know lots of people who do fly in fly out, they all say it is a good way to work. 8 days on and 6 days off or 2 weeks on and 1 week off, they are not bad shifts considering you have a full week off at home.. Others like 3 and 1 or 4 and 1 are harder with family but they are not as common. Regardless these high playing jobs I mentioned are based in perth, no flying.

We struggle to find experienced Inventor users here so if people made the move they would find work easy enough. Check out seek.com.au

Beer - $50 per carton - ridiculous!

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Stew
"Oompa Loompas of science" - Sheldon Cooper
I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken