Career Paths · 5 min read · Oct 2026
Salary by Country
Design Engineers Salary by Country
The US median for design engineers is $135,980. Below, the PPP-adjusted equivalent across 13 markets, modelled from US BLS data with OECD wage ratios and live exchange rates.
Pay and AI exposure
What the design engineers salary does not tell you
Salary measures what the market pays design engineers today. It says nothing about how durable that pay is as AI reshapes the work. Design Engineers currently sit at 16/100 on the AI exposure scale, in the low exposure band. A well-paid role can still be highly exposed: the question is which layer of the work you occupy.
The country differences below are wage-level effects, not exposure differences. AI compresses the same routine layer of design engineers work in every market. To see where your own position sits and what shifts it, run the free structural reading or model the dimensions in the simulator.
13 markets
Design Engineers salary across countries
Median annual pay and the typical 10th-to-90th-percentile range, shown in each market's local currency.
| Country | Median | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| United States (source) | $135,980 | $82,460 to $214,670 |
| United Kingdom | £70,400 | £42,700 to £111,100 |
| Canada | $141,600 | $85,900 to $223,600 |
| Australia | $145,000 | $87,900 to $228,900 |
| Ireland | €92,700 | €56,200 to €146,300 |
| New Zealand | $137,200 | $83,200 to $216,600 |
| Germany | 88.000 € | 53.400 € to 139.000 € |
| France | 78 800 € | 47 800 € to 124 400 € |
| Netherlands | € 104.300 | € 63.200 to € 164.600 |
| Singapore | $141,900 | $86,000 to $224,000 |
| Japan | ￥12,857,500 | ￥7,796,900 to ￥20,297,900 |
| South Africa | R 764,100 | R 463,400 to R 1,206,300 |
| India | ₹23,40,900 | ₹14,19,600 to ₹36,95,600 |
US figures are BLS OEWS survey data. All other countries are PPP-adjusted estimates, derived from the US median via OECD average-wage ratios and live exchange rates. They indicate purchasing-power-style equivalents, not surveyed local salaries.
FAQ
Design Engineers salary questions
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