Faculty Salary in Engineering and Computer Science

Since 2007, the ASEE Faculty Salary Survey has collected detailed data from colleges of engineering across 21 disciplines, including computer science within engineering colleges. Computer science faculty have been the highest-paid engineering assistant professors since the survey began. In 2021, the median salary for computer science assistant professors was $110,381; the average median salary for assistant professors across all disciplines except medicine and law was $83,362, according to the American Association of University Professors’ 2020–2021 Annual Report on the Economic Status of Faculty. The 2021 computer science salary figure represents a 1.2% increase from the year prior, while salaries for engineering assistant professors overall decreased. The gap between the average median salary for all engineering assistant professors and computer science assistant professors grew from $7,184 in 2007 to $15,074 in 2021. The salary gap between fields is driven by their market conditions. According to the Bureau for Labor Statistics, the median pay for computer and information scientists in 2020 was $126,830; the average median pay for other engineering disciplines was below $120,000, with the exception of petroleum engineers at $137,330. Further, many technology companies offer research environments similar to those available on university campuses, and those companies have begun to offer remote or nearly remote work environments because of the pandemic. These are attractive opportunities for computer science candidates, driving up the base pay required for universities to recruit new talent, and could preview a likely further increase in the gap between engineering and computer science faculty pay.