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Broadcast engineer : Salary and conditions

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Case studies

  • Typical starting salary: approximately £18,000 (salary data collected Nov 09).
  • Range of typical salaries at senior level/with experience (e.g. after 10-15 years in the role): £35,000 - £60,00 and above (salary data collected Nov 09).
  • Working hours are usually a nominal 40 hours a week, but in practice are often long and usually include regular unsocial hours for live and outside broadcasts. Studios are booked in advance and engineers must be available when schedules demand. In the case of technical or operational difficulties, employees are expected to remain until the job is done, and this means that extra hours are inevitable on a regular basis. Shifts are common and can include weekends, evenings or nights. You may also be required to work long hours at short notice, particularly for news and other live programming - especially with rolling news channels.
  • The environment can vary from comfortable and warm studios, to extreme conditions on location. Locations can be abroad and may occasionally involve working in dangerous conditions, for example, war zones. Competition for Outside Broadcast (OB) work is intense as many broadcast engineers enjoy the opportunity to travel and the variety of OB location work.
  • Work patterns may involve relatively quiet periods followed by intense activity. Job security is better than in other areas of the media industry, but contracts are often renewable, fixed-term or freelance, usually without paid holiday or sick leave.
  • The working environment can be highly pressurised. When there are equipment or technical failures, broadcast engineers are required to address problems as quickly as possible. The television environment is, generally, more stressful than radio.
  • The job of a broadcast engineer is changing as new technologies are adopted across the industry, simplifying traditional broadcast hardware in some sectors (lighter cameras used in documentary making, for instance, and use of WiFi and internet technologies) and converging IT skills with traditional engineering skills. An up-to-date knowledge of and versatility with IT skills and new technology - e.g. digital and multimedia systems - is, therefore, becoming increasingly important in this role.
  • Increasing numbers of broadcast engineers are becoming freelance. To be successful in securing freelance work, you will need to be highly organised and skilled in your own self-management and promotion, multi-skilled (able to use a wide range of equipment, thus saving costs for the employer), up to date in your knowledge and flexible with location.
  • Career breaks are possible, although this depends on the employer. Some companies require you to have worked with them for a length of time before you can take a break.
  • Jobs are widely available as television and radio stations are found in most areas of the UK. Jobs with the independent production companies and post-production facilities are mainly in London and the South East. Leading employers have large bases in London, although there are also opportunities in other cities and towns.
  • Most employers have active equal opportunities policies.
  • There is generally high job satisfaction in the industry.
  • The working environment is often informal.
  • The work can be both physically demanding and pressurised, and the long hours can be very disruptive to social and family life.
  • Location work and outside broadcasts (OBs) involve working away from home on a regular basis or for fairly long periods, and may also include working abroad.
 
 
 
 

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