At least once a day, I hear this phrase or variations of it in the halls from my engineer peers. Most of the time they say it as a joke, but beneath this joke lies the reality that some of us will likely go to work in the company, as the engineers before us already form the backbone of it.
When “I’ll Work for Lockheed Martin” Stops Being a Meme
Debunking the Inflated Salary Expectations
Over the last few years, a viral meme on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok has been that engineering students just have to endure their diploma until they can get into a big company like Lockheed Martin, Airbus Defence and Space or Raytheon where they’d make 500K a year. But is the 500K real or just overhyped for the meme of “selling your soul”?
In reality, the US defence company Lockheed Martin lives up to the expectation of high salaries for engineers. Taking into account that engineers contribute to 65 000 of the company’s 121 000 employees, their salaries (including typical reported bonuses ranging between 1100 and 3400 USD) range between:
- Entry level: 63 000 – 89 000 USD (highest being for aerospace engineers)
- Medium level: 88 800 – 93 400 USD
- Senior level: 123 000 – 192 000 USD
Although several factors could contribute to a lower or higher payment in the sector, such as the particular location and state, the role of a defence engineer is still placed among one of the highest paying non-medical jobs in the country, and is generally equal to or higher than the average annual salary nationwide (64 505 USD) throughout the career of the engineer.
In Europe, although the numbers are not as high, the jobs at defence companies can still be classified as high-paying jobs. In BAE systems, starting engineer jobs, such as industrial engineer or aeronautical engineer, are reported at about 22 000 – 30 000 pounds, while medium level jobs such as system engineers and quality engineers range between 35 000 – 45 000 pounds. As the senior manager level job can go up to 65 000 pounds, it can be classified as a high paying job, competing with the highest paying jobs in the UK, although still not making it in the ranking of top 10 highest paying ones, as they range between 91 000 and 68 000 pounds. However, it is still safe to say that medium level and senior engineers in the military defence area still earn equal to or higher than the median level salary, which for the ages between 45 and 49 is 39 700 for males and 30 100 for females in the UK .
A similar range of salaries can be seen for Airbus Defence and Space in France as the salaries range between 47 000 and 55 000 euro per year with an additional payment of 1000 in bonuses.
Thus, the statistics show that defence engineering provides decent payment and reliable compensation, but not exceptional wealth, as is often implied online. This raises the question of what other factors continue to draw engineers into the sector.
Benefits beyond payment
Beyond payment, a big incentive is the job security that the sector provides.
The defence market has been shown to be rapidly expanding, with the revenues of the world’s biggest arms producers and defence companies increasing 5.9% over the past year, reaching for the first time ever 679 billion dollars, according to the SIPRI 2025 fact sheet. Driven by increased global security demands, the industry is set to increase employment, as the EU defence spending rose by 30% between 2021 and 2024, amidst the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the industry often provides long-term fixed contracts as workers are usually part of a years-long specific project.
In this way, with expanding budgets, continuous need for rearment, and long-term contracts, defence engineering offers predictability and security, which makes it an appealing option in uncertain times.
The Code of Engineers and Dual-Use Technology
As engineers start their careers and enter a professional society, they are required to follow a code, which always starts with the duty of “[holding] paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public”. Although, at first, engineers entering military defence jobs may appear to oppose this code, most of them do so by acquiring the mindset that they do it for the defence of their country and the people in it, while advancing technology. Therefore they would create a positive impact on the world. However, even if engineers work in sectors such as surveillance and navigation, they still work at a military service company and their work can be exploited due to its dual-nature, as any technology may later be used for aggression, and navigation technology is the same one used for targeting. The concept of dual-use technology is a major contributor to putting the blame on engineers, as oftentimes, individuals cannot be sure how the technology they have created will actually be used by the company or the government. But can engineers be stated to be just “voiceless actors” when talking about the practical use of the technology they create?
Visual representation of dual-use technology, contrasting civilian engineering applications such as surveillance and data analysis with their potential military use in targeting and weapon systems.
(AI-generated image, created using ChatGPT)
The Responsibility Falls On…
As the responsibility for the use of a given technology is considered, it can be distributed across three main parties: the state, the company, and the individual engineer, each carrying a different weight of influence. While states have the final say in how defence technologies are utilised, and companies shape their final product through strategy and ethics policies, individual engineers operate within more structured but not negligible constraints. Although engineers do not push the final button, they choose where to apply their skills and in some cases, they may refuse certain projects or voice their preferences that align with their values. Although they cannot be held solely responsible for the final use of technology, by working for a company, they associate themselves with its ethics and this action implies a certain degree of partial responsibility as their expertise could potentially be used for the wrong reasons.
Awareness Over Purity
As the meme persists, the defence industry continues to grow, and the world demands more weaponry, this call is not from a position of moral superiority, but of a fellow colleague, who sympathises with the shared concern about whether the work engineers do is ultimately used for the purposes they imagine, or for the company’s interests. For that reason, evaluating a job position in defence requires looking beyond the specific project one applies for and instead, analyse the trajectory and ethics of the company itself. As demand for engineers rises, candidates are not only getting interviewed but instead can and should be interviewing as well, asking for transparency during recruitment. Thus, in the context of engineers, ethical engagement comes down less to purity and more to awareness of the final outcome.
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