What does a contract electrical engineer do?
Contract electrical engineering jobs can be with clients installing electrical equipment, power supplies, control systems or electrical systems. A contract electrical engineer can help with electrical design and development of different types of electrical schematics, drawings, or prints. A electrical engineer will travel to their clients’ location and help troubleshoot or debug their electrical equipment. Depending on their work experience, they may be asked to help with electrical training or electrical safety.
How to find contract electrical engineers?
Many contract electricians need certain preferred qualifications to fulfill their electrical engineering duties. A client may be able to identify some important electrical skills needed for a job type, by looking through an individual’s resume to find relevant experience.
Customer requirements may be different but an electrical engineer contract job description may include:
- Math or science requirements.
- Electrical design of components, parts or electrical systems.
- Understanding of power requirements for building services.
- Project management skills.
- Specialized electrical engineering categories.
- Similar work experience on electrical projects.
- Leadership or management roles.
- Communicates well with multiple engineering teams.
- Can perform electrical maintenance duties.
Sometimes the client needs more information than just a resume in order to identify the perfect contract electrical engineer for their project. They need to see prior references and a rating system to help them make a decision, and now with engineering service platforms like JOINER Services that have an unbiased resource pool for finding quality electrical engineering talent.
How to become an electrical contract engineer?
The first thing to think about if someone is interested in becoming an electrical engineering contractor is their education. According to Zippia.com, 72.9% of contract electricians have a bachelor’s degree. In addition, 12.8% of contract electricians have master’s degrees. [1]
Although most contract electrical engineers have a college degree, becoming a contract electrician with a high school diploma or GED is possible, as a junior electrical engineer. One of the main factors is getting a job as a contract electrical engineer is that candidates have years of prior electrical work experience.
When researching how to become an electrical contractor engineer, the best career advice would be to choose the right electrical major. As noted above, contract electrical engineers most often have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in some type of electrical engineering field. Getting an electrical engineering degree from a university in Michigan can be very beneficial to the start of a career, as the median starting salary from many schools is reported higher than the national average. [2]
One may find after they gain more work experience within an industry and overtime working as a field engineer, an individual could easily become an electrical contractor. Many contract electrical engineer jobs require prior experience as an electrical engineer in a certain role within a company. An experienced electrical engineer will have had prior roles in the electrical industry, where they have been a lead, senior electrical engineer, or they were in a project management role, over electrical projects or electrical engineers.
Top skills of a contract electrical engineer.
A contract electrical engineer’s resume will grow quickly with the work experience they gain working on many different projects for many clients. Contract electrical engineer jobs will be challenging, but once a person stops contracting, they will be able to easily find employment because of the amount of electrical knowledge they have gained.
These skills gained while contracting will help them boost a career in electrical engineering:
- Building electrically safe equipment and electrical components.
- Learning to troubleshoot or debug electrical equipment and electronics.
- Establishing electrical communications between automated products and devices.
- Reading electrical drafting prints, schematics, and drawings.
- Building systems, controls or components.
- Working with high and low amperages or voltages.
- Creating new design concepts or developing new products.
- Constructing cabinets, panels or electrical housings.
- The design of all products that involve electricity.
- Understanding a clients’ electrical specification.
- Learning how each electrical element on a clients’ product functions.
Contract Electrical Engineer Jobs
Many also choose to work on the contract because of the constant “change of scenery,” as many engineers are bored with their current job. Contract work can be very exciting, and bring unique challenges, as each customer will have different issues that must be resolved.
Electrical contracting projects are rarely similar because they will change client locations, develop business relationships with new people, and work on different electrical projects. Contract electrical engineer jobs can provide such a unique opportunity for an individual to grow, in their professional and personal life.
The most important part is finding what is best for that individual. Contract work is not for everyone but those who are interested in learning more about contract electrical engineering can now search engineering services platforms like JOINER Services, which offer opportunities for electrical engineering contractors to increase their customer base and win more business.
Contract Electrical Engineer Salary
Contract electrical engineers can do more than meets the eyes and get paid a great wage for their skillful and technical electrical work. For example, did you know that the average hourly rate for a contract electrical engineer is over $49.71 and they average an annual wage of more than $100,830 per year? The top 10% earn more than $159,520 annually, and the bottom 10% make less than $64,870 each year. [3]
The profession is also expected to grow annually by 2%, from 2018 through 2028, and provide over 8,000 new job opportunities in the U.S., so finding an electrical engineer job has never been easier. [4]
More Resources for Engineering Contractor Jobs:
- What Is a Contract Engineer?
- Contract Engineering Jobs: A Career of Opportunities
- Retiring Early as a Contract Engineer
- Weld Engineering, Making it a Career in Michigan
- Project Management Jobs in Michigan
- Electrical Engineer Salary in Michigan
- Robot Programming Jobs, a Career with Upward Momentum
- The Growth of Controls Engineering Jobs in Michigan
- Design Engineering Jobs are Building the Future
- Find Contract Robot Programmer Jobs
- Contract Weld Engineering Jobs
- Find Contract Controls Engineer Jobs
- Find Contract Design Engineer Jobs
- Find Contract Program Manager Jobs
Take a Look at the Engineering Contractor Careers that JOINER Services Can Help You With:
- Weld Engineering Careers
- Robot Programming Careers
- Program Management Careers
- Electrical Engineering Careers
- Design Engineering Careers
- Controls Engineering Careers
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