So now having to worry about how much I am getting paid, I decided to do a very rudimentary analysis of the average wage to determine how much I should be looking at getting paid next term. I am going to do everything in percentages so it’ll be easier for everyone to apply to their own wages.

Let’s start with the engineering co-op average salary with data from the CECS weekly salary survey 2006 (the 2007 one isn’t available yet, but you know its much higher than 2006 =D, and it is also why I am doing this to figure out what I should actually expect). And because we’re oh-so competitive, lets throw up the upper range numbers where the more competitive students are more likely to be paid at on average.

• Term 1: 532 | 638 [average | range max (excludes top 10%)]
• Term 2: 585 | 675
• Term 3: 640 | 731
• Term 4: 685 | 773
• Term 5: 739 | 843
• Term 6: 776 | 923

Finding the % differences, we have, respectively:

• 9.96% | 5.80%
• 9.40% | 8.30%
• 7.03% | 5.75%
• 7.88% | 9.06%
• 5.01% | 9.49%

Multiplied with an 3.7% raise in the next year, the numbers now come out to (per 8 month at 2.47%):

• 10.21% | 5.94%
• 9.63% | 8.50%
• 7.20% | 5.89%
• 8.07% | 9.23%
• 5.13% | 9.72%

Adjusting for 2.2% core CPI (again, per 8 month at 1.47%) …

• 10.36% | 6.03%
• 9.77% | 8.63%
• 7.31% | 5.98%
• 8.19% | 9.42%
• 5.21% | 9.87%

Et voila, there you have it. I am doing this pretty close to my bed time, so there might be some slight errors. A certain program director at UW once said, “[electrical and computer engineers] do not know how to do data analysis because they are not taught how to do so”, so you should take this post with salt and pepper.

Disclaimer: These are just rough estimates and does not account for the ever changing (and expanding, because we’re Canadian) market. I do not hold responsibilities for what you do with these numbers, they are only here for informational purposes. But I’ll gladly accept a 9.87% wage increase relative to my previous work term.

Note to first years who might be reading this: Don’t be too picky, but don’t pick bad employers. Check out reviews from other co-op students on cooprankings.com to help you find the right employer. If you like banks (they typically hire tons of 1st years), BMO and TD are awesome, not so much the others though… especially the one that starts with the “S”