If you want to stand out to employers and maximise your salary, it pays to know the skills that are most in demand in your field. According to recent data, these are the most lucrative skills you can have as an electronics engineer in 2021.
1. Project Management
PayScale data reveals that project management has the biggest positive impact on salary for electronics engineers. The more senior the role you’re looking for, the more important this one is.
If you’re looking for a management role in electronics engineering, you could be responsible for overseeing the whole life cycles of products, mapping the development of new products, and identifying potential process improvements. Knowledge of process improvement frameworks like Lean Six Sigma will be helpful here, especially in industries like aerospace and manufacturing.
2. Engineering Design
As an electronics engineer, you can become more versatile by gaining a basic level of familiarity with several different engineering design models. Then you can work from that base to go more in depth on the specific skills that are most beneficial to your role and career.
3. Electronic Troubleshooting
According to PayScale data, electronic troubleshooting is the single most popular skill for electronics engineers. Depending on how complex the devices are, troubleshooting can be a difficult skill to master. For example, televisions and computers may require you to test every component individually to make sure everything is working correctly.
4. Test Engineering
Test engineering involves both quality assurance and quality control skills — implementing processes to ensure quality and then looking for ways to make those processes more efficient. Test engineering skills will boost your earning potential as an electronics engineer by about 2%, more if combined with some of the other skills on the list.
5. C, C++, VHDL and HDL programming languages
Engineers in many fields benefit from knowing a few programming languages, especially with the growth in embedded electronics and integrated circuits. Hardware description language (HDL) is used to determine the behaviour of circuits, making it vital for electronics engineers. C is also particularly useful because it’s used to code many embedded systems. Both C and C++ are in high demand right now, placing in the top 5 of IEEE Spectrum’s top programming languages for 2021.