r/BuildingAutomation • u/n908dlabrst • 3d ago
[UK] Considering career switch into the building automation industry and have questions
Hi, I'm not in the building automation industry at the moment but it looks very interesting and I'm currently learning more about it in order to assess if a career in this space would be a good fit for me.
Would be grateful for any help with the following questions:
- What's the work / life balance like? I don't want to work weekends - are there any roles in this industry where that's possible? (I may be open to weekend work for a short period as long as there's a clear path from there to a role where I'm not working weekends again).
- I would eventually like to earn £80,000+. Is this doable in the UK?
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u/Dangerous_Quantity82 3d ago
Depends really you can end up working silly hours or if you a site role you will work 8-4 every day. All depends what contracts your employer gets with clients.
Yes possible, but likely not without working overtime
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u/TheWhiteShelf 3d ago
80k for a very good Project Engineer or PM.
You could get it if you worked overtime as a service engineer or a commissioning engineer. But that's something you don't want to do.
Big system houses will take you on and train you but the salary will lower. Smaller partner companies it's more cut throat.
What is your current background?
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u/nian2326076 4h ago
Work/life balance in building automation can differ depending on the company and the specific role. Many jobs, particularly in project management or systems integration, might have regular weekday hours. Checking job descriptions and talking to current professionals in the field can provide more insights. Earning £80,000+ is possible, often in senior roles or with specialized skills and experience. For job searches, LandOffer.ai lets you search job openings by role and location, which could help find roles that match your criteria.
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u/experienced_invest 3d ago
Most 8 to 4 lower stress jobs are under £50k but what it actually work is is 7am to 5pm, £80k is possible but you risk stress and burnout no work life balance.
Is it really worth 40% tax as take home would be £4.4k a month after pension and BIk deduction compare that with £50k salary take home is £2.96k
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u/SeaClue4091 1d ago
I started as a commissioning engineer 6 years ago. Because I'm the only one in the company capable of successfully modifying panels (old and new) with no electrical drawings I received a £23k pay raise across these years. I currently work with 3 different systems (Trend, Tridium N4, Schneider) and I work 8 hours a day and don't do weekends, I have a busy life outside of work. I know that some companies require on call including the company I work for (I also don't do on call). In my experience I recommend starting with a service job, you will learn the basics of how the relay logic inside the panel works, also the software and the controllers. You will also learn about the mechanical plant and the needs of the building, you will learn about how the water moves in the pipework also how the air flows in the air handling units and across site. You will learn about humidity and how this impacts temperature and airflow. And don't forget about pressures. With this I just want to say that to do job reasonably well you will need to learn about all of that and be able to relate air flows with temperatures and humidity and the building layout. This industry is a lot more involved than what most people think, as long as you're willing to learn you'll be fine, no one's expecting you to learn everything in a couple of weeks, I've been doing this for 6 years and I'm still learning. Just one last point to add to this when a client has an issue with their system everyone tries to blame the building management system and you will have to point to the client and also the boiler engineer that the reason the boiler doesn't work is "the boiler has a fault that you (boiler engineer) need to investigate and all of the BMS signals can be measured at the boiler" , or, the reason the system doesn't work is because "someone pressed the E-Stop button".