Autocad Draftsman Salary Australia

[Tony Phan]

Hiall, I am a 22 year old male with almost 4 years experience as a structural drafter I have a diploma in structural engineering, I have been using mainly Autocad and Revit for the duration of my traineeship, but can also use a few other packages. For the last year or so have been solely responsible for creating models/issuing drawings on a few different jobs. I work for a firm that is one of the best in the business, but I am after a bit of advice from experienced drafters who have had success in there line of work. I make sure I know how everything I draw works / is constructed and I am eager to learn ( I don't want to be another cad monkey) given that in my 4th year I currently earn $17 hour going into my 5th year I will be fully qualified how much should I expect to earn? What could I expect to earn in another 5 years?? What are the top guys earning?? What would be the most successful industry to get Into(mining, oil and gas etc)?? I enjoy what I do but am now questioning if this is what I should be doing...Due to low pay, lack of respect drafters get, excess unpaid overtime.

I work for a firm that is one of the best in the business, but I am after a bit of advice from experienced drafters who have had success in there line of work. I make sure I know how everything I draw works / is constructed and I am eager to learn ( I don't want to be another cad monkey) given that in my 4th year I currently earn $17 hour going into my 5th year I will be fully qualified how much should I expect to earn?

Look at working elsewhere. I am a strong supporter of loyalty although loyalty is a two way street. While the firm you work for has trained you up well and put 4 years of time into you, they have also paid you the bare minimum while you have worked for them for 4 years and made them decent money for probably at least 3.5 of those years.

Thanks Zivad i can use Rhino, Microstation (only 2D) and Catia, I guess by successful i just meant someone who is making good money and enjoying what they are doing. Im just after some sort of idea of what a good drafter can earn? My experiences so far as a drafter have made me seriously question if this is what i should be doing.

I've worked as a civil designer/drafter mainly for mining and I was on about 50-60k for the first 3 years then I jumped ship and started working as a contractor doing mainly heavy haulage rail design and I was on $70/h working 45hr weeks so I was roughly on $150k a year gross

Oil and Gas pay really well but its hard to get into, mining is second best in terms of pay but with the state of the mining economy right now a lot of people are out of work. Your best bet would be to get into subdivisional/camp design.

To be honest I know pretty much nothing about Revit I was just assuming. But I know I've been offered a job doing residential drafting and it was $55k per annum and coming off nearly 3 times that I wasnt going to take that. But on average I think civil drafters/designers are on $75k-90k a year. All depends what company you are employed with, some pay top market rates others bottom.

I went from $55k a year to three times that and thats due to switching from staff position to a contract role at a bigger company thats involved in heavy haulage rail design. And I proved myself pretty quickly and was awarded. But like you said it isnt sustainable but it all depends on the size of the project, if youre working on a project worth half a billion dollars it is very easily sustainable but if youre working on a residential project worth couple of million then no.

I've worked in Cairns, Goldcoast, Brisbane and a few consultancies in the southwest of WA. I started off on nothing, like yourself, then realised how much I was being ripped off and jumped ship (well I was moving state anyway so had to quit) and my pay went from 32k up to 50k. With the mining boom, drafties pay was booming as well. So I went to my boss and said I want to be paid market rates. He agreed to an increase and it went up again. If I left, he would have had to hire someone at market rates anyway, so it makes sense to keep workers you like.

In recent times, during the mining boom, quite a few designers and drafers were getting paid more than engineers. The reason being that there was a greater shortage of drafters than engineers. Hence the basic economic principle of supply and demand dictates in this situation that drafters would get paid more.

Thanks everyone, Would be very interested to know how you made the transition to mechanical? So would 50k be reasonable after 4 year experience. I have mainly been doing high end commercial jobs. So very few drafters on a salary would ever earn over 80k? I am waiting until I am signed of them I will name my price.

Sasha- do you have a uni degree? The statement about earning well under 55k is what I didn't want to hear. Completing a 4 year apprenticeship to earn anything under 50k seems absolutely pointless if you ask me.

Civil designer here (still with the good mining contract rate for the last 3.5 years)

One thing to bear in mind here is Sasha (and myself) are both in WA. Burbass and Zivad are in NSW where I suspect the rates are vastly different. The rates are certainly very different between resources projects and others.

Still, 17/hr after 4 years still seems very low. Also no over time pay? Ouch! My first job, while low paying, at least paid over time. I think you have been taken for a ride. Do you know what you get charged out to clients at? MY guess is it will be 4-5 times what they pay you, which is a rort.

Burbass...

Thanks everyone, Would be very interested to know how you made the transition to mechanical? So would 50k be reasonable after 4 year experience. I have mainly been doing high end commercial jobs. So very few drafters on a salary would ever earn over 80k? I am waiting until I am signed of them I will name my price.

Sasha- do you have a uni degree? The statement about earning well under 55k is what I didn't want to hear. Completing a 4 year apprenticeship to earn anything under 50k seems absolutely pointless if you ask me.

$50k after 4 years working experience is not reasonable at all in my experience. Unless you really suck at drafting and are being paid accordingly that figure is def not in keeping with market rates for someone with 4 years experience. You should be at least around $70k mark IMO.

Also I was working as a contractor so my pay rate was higher because I dont get paid sick leave or annual leave, and being a contractor you can get made redundant with one days warning so theres a bit of "danger money" in there too. If I was working as a permament staff for the same company I would of been around $50-$60/hr which is still really good. But unfortunately all the projects I was working on got post poned so I was out of work for a good 3 months before I found another job doing quantity scheduling and getting paid nearly half as much but Im going to uni full time this year so I wont be earning much anyways for the next four years.

To answer your other question I dont have a degree only a diploma, but with drafting 80% is on the job experience, the diploma is just to get your foot in the door. And I've never heard of apprenticeships for drafting?

OP, first things first. Drafting is an unregulated industry. There is no formal qualification you need to have in order to do drafting as a career. If your employer is saying that you will be fully qualified after your fourth year then I would be asking as what. Yes you have a diploma which is all well and good but the fact is you don't need that to work as a draftsperson. Just on this alone I think your employer has taken advantage of your newness to the industry.

You say that your employer is one of the best in the industry. That is subjective and I would say it's time to move on, for your wallet if nothing else. Qualifications are superficial. Experience wins every time.

I did a diploma at TAFE and sort of fell into drafting. Turns out I liked it and its easy. There is no need for uni to become a draftsman/designer. For that effort I would be wanting to become an engineer.

Yea oil and gas is a gold mine. Not very interesting in terms of drafting from what I understand, its mainly piping and instrumentation diagrams but who cares when youre rolling in $$$. All of them seem to be after people with experience but how do you get experience that is the question.

Reason being is that if you are a designer, you need to know some technical engineering stuff. If you are designing a stormwater drainage system or a road using CADD, then you do need to understand how such infrastrucuture is designed. It's not simply a case of just drawing stuff.

There are companies that have designers, especially for laying underwater pipes and stuff like that. I dont know much about it but thats what I heard. That would be very interesting, having to map out a pipe alignment underwater.

Im in a similar boat. Im 22 in my 5th year drafting, Have an advanced diploma in mech eng. Im on about 65K. I would be super upset about the unpaid overtime, thats rubbish and you should put your foot down.

Quite a few of the big civil engineering firms do this. I'm not sure of the details although I don't think it is a formal apprenticeship, more so a program run in house by each of the companies where they hire junior staff and train them up over a 4 year period while they also complete Tafe diplomas in drafting/design as well.

I work at and have worked at some of the top consulting firms in the eastern states and the OPs salary is not uncommon. He might be able to get another 5k to 10K if he jumps ship to a rival company although civil/structural engineering drafting (or in general most disciplines outside of mining and oil & gas) is not as lucrative as some think. To command more money the OP needs to move more into a design drafter role or try his luck in WA etc.

If you have experience you don't need either as a lot of it can be learnt on the job by competent drafters who transition into designers with time. Let's be honest, civil design is not exactly rocket science.

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