Chemical Engineer vs Production Supervisor

On pay, chemical engineers come out ahead by about $17k a year at the midpoint of posted bands: $65k–$116k against $57k–$90k for production supervisors. These are advertised figures from postings that state a salary, not estimates. By seniority and country: chemical engineer salary and production supervisor salary.

On skills, they are related jobs with a real gap between them. There is a shared core, and then each side asks for things the other rarely does. The skills both sets of postings want most are Lean / Six Sigma, Supply Chain, Operations, Quality Control, SAP.

Yes, and the numbers say how far along you already are: a typical chemical engineer profile covers 40% of what production supervisor 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 production supervisor profile covers 61% of what chemical engineer postings ask for. Our estimate for the move is 9–16 mo. The two directions are not symmetric: production supervisor to chemical engineer is the easier move, 61% against 40%. The route page has the gap itemized.

Right now our board has 126 chemical engineer openings and 142 production supervisor openings, each linking to the original posting. The board refreshes every night, so the counts move with the market. Hiring the most chemical engineers at the moment: BoschGroup (13), Crb (5), Spacex (5). For production supervisors: Carvana (7), Hellofresh (7), Jobup (6).