2026 ChemE Compensation Survey

**Important (please read)**

I am working with a long-time chemical engineer contact of mine on building a tool that will be more interactive, up-to-date (in terms of information), and available for this community. This tool will provide an even more granular comparison of compensation across industries, market segments and locations. For accuracy, we need as much information as we can get and to that end, this year's survey questionnaire will be more questions. I want to reassure you, all of this data is anonymized and only summary statistics will be publicly available - in no way, shape, or form will any identifying information be shared publicly. We take your privacy and the trust you've placed in us very seriously. If you would prefer to communicate your data to me via phone or email, that is perfectly ok. My ongoing committment to everyone who helps with this project is that we will protect your data and will never sell your data.

The Basics

I don't collect this information for any other reason than a) making doubly-sure I don't have duplicates and b) making sure that everyone who contributes their data gets a copy of the completed report. My contact information is above.
Please provide the email address you would like me to email the completed compensation report to.
**Please provide the City and State information - we DO NOT need Street Address data (just put a dash or asterisk in the street line). We collect this data in order to break down salary target by region of the country.

About You

These questions are related to your current job role, and your current compensation.
Do not include academic experience or Co-op/Internship experience, just the number of years you've been working in the industry since you started working. If you are currently a student, put "0".
I hesitated to put this in because company titles can be so specific to the company. If you could help me, standardize your title. In other words, capture the essence of the job you do.
If you don't want to share this, this question is not required. I want to be able to make comparison between companies at some point, both on comp and benefits. Adding the name of the company you work for would be helpful for comparisons and will be anonymized from respondents.
Along the same lines as Company data, it is not required you answer this question.
This is self-explanatory, but this question is getting at whether you manage people or not. If you don't have any direct reports, even if your title has 'manager' in it, select "Individual Contributor".
I changed this question a little from last year, into multiple choice rather than a specific number. I think this will be more valuable information.
I need this information in order to compare compensation between degree levels.
This is a new question for this year - I'm asking what your approximate W2 wages will be for 2025, from your current employer, combining base, bonus and any other cash compensation (car allowance, company car, commissions, overtime pay) related to your ChemE job this year. Please exclude stock grants or stock options because those only hold value if sold.
Base comp, or base pay rate (if hourly), independent of bonuses, etc.
This question is about Short-Term Incentives (STI), not longer term incentives. I'm **not** asking what it paid out as, but rather what the target is (rounded to the nearest whole number). If you don't receive a bonus as part of your compensation, please select '0%'. If your company pays a bonus, but it is not a defined target, what percentage did they pay out last year?
How many days of vacation do you receive per year, not including company-observed holidays? If your company has an 'unlimited vacation' policy, please tell me how many vacation days you take per year, on average. If your company expresses your vacation time in terms of hours, please take the total number of hours and divide by 8 to get the number of days of vacation you have.
I want this number as a percentage of your base salary. For example, if your company matches $1-for-$1 on 3% and $0.50-for-$1 on the next 2%, the company match is 4% of your base salary. *Important Note: If your employer makes a non-elective contribution to your 401K, add that to their match. As an example, if they do a dollar-for-dollar match up to 6%, and then they make another 6% contribution to your 401K at the end of the year, add that additional 6% to their match, for a total match of 12%.

Certifications

Last year, I started examining the differences in comp between those who have these certification and those who don't. If you have a certification other than the three listed here (like CSP, CMRP, etc) please don't take offense, I'll add more in future years if it turns out there is something here.
Professional Engineer (PE) License
Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
If you have done the training, but are not certified, please check 'No'.

Company Perks

This section is about the types of non-base compensation and/or programming your company offers. Please answer each question "yes" or "no" about your current employer. If there is something you want me to know about that your company provides, please tell me in the "Anything else" question at the bottom of this survey.
Different than a pension program and usually separate from a bonus (STI) program as well. Sometimes this is in the form of a non-elective 401K contribution. If you receive such a contribution, then you are part of a profit-sharing plan.
I'm asking whether you personally have this benefit. Typically these are offered at higher-level roles and have a vesting period.
ESOP stands for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. An ESOP is a retirement plan that invests primarily in company stock and holds its assets in a trust for employees.
Different than a stock purchase program - this would be stock shares (restricted or non-restricted) given to you either as part of a bonus program or as part of your regular compensation. Startup companies, especially earlier stage startup companies often offer stock options as part of a new-hire comp package.
This is typically something publicly-traded companies offer - a plan where current employees can purchase company stock at a (usually) discounted price. Not the same as an ESOP.
This question isn't about you necessarily - more generally, is this something your company offers to new-hires, currently?
Again, I mean this generally - whether you've taken advantage of it personally, is continuing/higher education reimbursement something your company offers?
Can you buy additional vacation days?
I'm asking whether you personally have this benefit.

Schedule

For this question - WFH (work from home) means you work out of your home exclusively. 'Hybrid' is 3 days in, 2 days out, or anything like that. Any variation of a 9/80 or 4/10 schedule is one idea. Flexible working hours is where you have the ability to do your work from home sometimes, but it's not a hybrid work-schedule policy.
This question isn't about the particular facility/office you work at, but about your employer overall. One question I've gotten asked a few times is if there is any difference in pay based on the size of companies.
These categories aren't perfect; please choose the one that best describes the main products/services of your current or most recent employer. I've received a lot of feedback from people asking if they could mark themselves down for more than one category, but in the end, that becomes an analysis nightmare.

What Is Important To You?

This section deserves a little bit of explanation. As I mentioned at the top, I'm working on a project behind the scenes and the final product will end up being a website, but I want that website to offer more than compensation insights. I want to start to explore differences in company cultures and at least high-level sentiment from within the industry and then be able to track trends in that data over time. This, just like the rest of the data gathered in this survey, is strictly confidential, shared with no one, and even analyzed anonymously. I won't make any of these questions required, but I did want to explain what I'm up to.
This is going to be the type of question that doesn't apply to everyone.
This question is a starting point - eventually I want to be able to add more detail to a series of questions about benefits that will start to shed light on this subject.
If I am missing something or you have a suggestion for something else I can ask about - please give me that feedback here. I have received and incorporated some of the immensely helpful feedback I've gotten from this section, so thank you for those of you who have taken the time to provide it.
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