I have a degree in mechanical engineering, however work as a software developer. The turbulence of the software industry can be quite a ride - however, I wanted to look at the future of the industries based on data from the government.
| Job Data | Software Development | Mechanical Engineering | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Jobs in 2023 | 1,692,100 | 291,000 | +1,401,100 |
| New Jobs / yr | 140,000 | 20,000 | +120,000 |
| Total Jobs in 2033 | 1,990,000 | 323,900 | +1,666,100 |
| Degrees / yr | 88,000 - 100,000 | 30,000 - 40,000 | +60,000 |
| Job / degree (2023) | 16.92 | 7.2 | 2x |
Universities in the United States are graduating around 40k mechanical engineers per year and 100k Computer Science majors per year. To me, this signals an oversaturation of mechanical engineers compared to software developers based on just the raw jobs available.
Even through all of the layoffs and turbulence, software development is alive and well. AI could "eliminate" 81% of software development jobs and there would still be more software development jobs as compared to mechanical engineering.
However, some things to consider for mechanical engineering jobs that probably make the job less competitive:
On the other hand, you might have mechanical engineers applying to software development jobs.
Roughly 174M people in the United States did some form of work in 2023. It is estimated that 4M will retire (hit the age of 65) every year through 2027. Lets make the assumption that all 4M will retire. So overall, that would mean roughly a 2% retirement rate or exit from the workforce every year.
Lets loosely estimate the rate of people entering each industry.
Assumptions:
So, assuming a 2% retirement rate for each industry - for every retiree in mechanical engineering there are ~7 people entering the industry, while for software development that number is 3.
This could be skewed, as software development has a higher rate of burnout (imo) - meaning that the rate of exiting the industry could be higher, leading to an even lower inflow rate. These napkin calculations suggest mechanical engineering is becoming saturated at more than twice the rate of software development.
Lets look at the flip side. To reach the same level of inflow rate as mechanical engineering, you could double the amount of computer science degrees handed out per year.