Engineering Manager

35% technical, 35% management, 15% recruitment, 15% administration... engineering managers, or EMs to those in the know, are typically responsible for tech teams of between 5 and 20 people. They need to motivate and coordinate others to ensure works are completed on time, all the while living and breathing their company’s vision.

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What are the tasks of an engineering manager?

Let's take engineering managers in the field of civil engineering as an example. In this role, you are crucially involved in the implementation of major infrastructure projects. You work for an engineering service provider, a construction service provider or are directly employed by the client. Your tasks include:

  • Monitoring planning and implementation while adhering to cost, quality, and time targets
  • Technical supervision of projects from the planning phase through to acceptance
  • Coordinating various trades in respect of performance interfaces and timelines
  • Ensuring compliance with legal regulations and standards
  • Tracking project progress and escalating major deviations accordingly.


As such, engineering managers combine several perspectives. They are technical experts who can ensure flawless planning and implementation of construction projects. At the same time, they are aware of dependencies and interfaces, enabling them to coordinate the activities of all partner companies involved. This is also true for the IT sector or plant engineering. Good project management ultimately determines whether project goals are achieved.

Fun fact

According to Carlson’s law, doing something all in one go without interruption takes less time and effort than doing it in several stages. Nowadays, executives are interrupted on average once every 12 minutes during the working day. These disturbances have a significant impact on their effectiveness and can lead to mistakes being made. Distinctions can be made between “consented” interruptions (opening an email that’s just arrived, replying to a group chat message) and “subjected” interruptions (a colleague walking into a shared office space speaking loudly, someone tapping you on the shoulder even though you’re wearing headphones, etc.). During intense programming tasks, some developers try to “stay in the zone” by cutting out all distractions in the hope of being more productive, focussed and sharp... but that also means being less sociable and available. Well, no pain, no gain, right?

Skills

Hard skills

  • Monitor manufacturing quality standards
  • Risk management
  • Write specifications
  • Ict project management
  • Apply crisis management
  • Management skills
  • Budgetary principles

Soft skills

  • Active listening
  • Human projection
  • Logical reasoning

What skills do engineering managers need?

Engineering managers are at the centre of everything, as they are central points of contact for clients, partner companies and their own team. Apart from their technical background, this high-profile role requires some additional skills:

  • Strong communication skills
  • Ability to make decisions quickly
  • Independent working style
  • Leadership skills


As an engineering manager, you regularly report to the contracting companies on project progress, problems and solutions. In civil engineering, as in mechanical engineering, every major project is unique, so new challenges always arise. Confident handling of these situations makes a successful engineering manager.

Engineering manager's training

The role of engineering manager exists in various technical fields. In the IT sector, you will oversee large hardware and software projects, so IT knowledge is essential. If you are completing a degree in Computer Science or Business Informatics, this can be an interesting career path for you.

For tasks in the field of civil engineering, HR departments prefer applicants from the fields of civil engineering or industrial engineering with a specialisation in civil engineering. Even if you have acquired business knowledge as a graduate engineer or have a master's degree in mechanical engineering, the path to engineering management is open to you. However, direct entry is the exception: many employers require prior experience in project work in the respective field.

Engineering manager's salary

With a lot of responsibility and communication with numerous stakeholders, those who prove themselves in engineering management have interesting prospects. The initial salary ranges from £43,000 to £51,000, depending on experience and responsibility.


Source of salary information: https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Engineering_Manager/Salary

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