Aerospace Engineer vs Biomedical Engineer

On pay, aerospace engineers come out ahead by about $42k a year at the midpoint of posted bands: $100k–$155k against $61k–$111k for biomedical engineers. These are advertised figures from postings that state a salary, not estimates. By seniority and country: aerospace engineer salary and biomedical engineer salary.

On skills, they are mostly different jobs that happen to share a name or a hallway. The overlap is thin, which is often exactly why people search this pair. The skills both sets of postings want most are QA / Testing, Project Management, Criminal Investigation, Prototyping, Lean / Six Sigma.

Yes, and the numbers say how far along you already are: a typical aerospace engineer profile covers 33% of what biomedical engineer postings ask for. Our estimate for the move is 12–24 mo. The instrument lists the exact skills that make up the rest.

Going the other way, a typical biomedical engineer profile covers 18% of what aerospace engineer postings ask for. Our estimate for the move is 12–24 mo. The two directions are not symmetric: aerospace engineer to biomedical engineer is the easier move, 33% against 18%.

Right now our board has 215 aerospace engineer openings and 10 biomedical engineer openings, each linking to the original posting. The board refreshes every night, so the counts move with the market. Hiring the most aerospace engineers at the moment: Direct employer (148), Federal Aviation Administration (6), Naval Air Systems Command (5). For biomedical engineers: Direct employer (5), Veterans Health Administration (2), Abbott (1).