Cross wind
October 11, 2026
Aviation has a shortage of engineers, and the numbers show it especially in the UK. By the end of June 2026, airlines and leasing companies had a record 16,925 civilian aircraft on order worldwide (ICAEW). In 2024, 83% of defence and aerospace employers reported an engineering skills shortage (Unify HQ). Someone has to design, test, wire and program all those aircraft, and graduates who can do it are scarce.
Three engineering degrees sit in the UK’s top ten for graduate pay: Electrical and Electronic Engineering (sixth), Chemical Engineering (ninth) and Aerospace Engineering (tenth) (The Complete University Guide). Chemical Engineering mostly feeds the energy, manufacturing and food industries, so this guide sticks to the degrees that lead into aviation.
Every salary below is a median, meaning the middle figure if you line up all graduates from lowest to highest. It’s a fairer picture than an average, which a few very high earners can skew. Figures are for graduates in high-skilled roles in 2024:
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, £34,000
Aerospace Engineering, £33,000
Computer Science, £33,000
Mechanical Engineering, £32,400
Physics, £30,000 one year after graduating, rising to £43,900 after five (CourseToJob)
This is the direct route if you want to design, build and test aircraft, helicopters and spacecraft. Expect a lot of mathematics, aerodynamics (how air moves around objects) and flight mechanics. It leads straight to jobs like Flight Physics Engineer, where you analyse test flight data and confirm a new aircraft is safe before it carries passengers (Aerocontact). The risk is that it’s narrow. If you’re sure about aviation, that doesn’t matter.
Mechanical engineering covers any moving machine, from wind turbines to car engines. Aviation is one place it leads: aircraft engines, landing gear and structural components are all mechanical design jobs (University of Leeds). It’s the safer choice if you want aviation but also want the option of moving into other manufacturing later.
It pays the most of the five. Its skills sit behind modern technology, renewable energy and communications (The Complete University Guide). In aviation, the natural destination is avionics, the electronic systems on aircraft and satellites (Morson Projects). If you’d rather work on the systems inside an aircraft than on its structure, start here.
Modern aircraft are close to flying computers, running on millions of lines of code. A common route is Avionics Software Developer, writing the code that keeps autopilot, navigation and radar systems working (Morson Projects). Indeed’s job listings suggest these are among the most sought-after professionals in the UK. This is also the easiest degree on the list to take into a non-aviation job if you change your mind.
Physics isn’t an engineering degree, but aerospace companies hire from it. Aircraft design depends on physics, so physics graduates regularly land technical roles in flight dynamics, radar systems and space flight engineering (Indeed). It starts lower than the engineering degrees, though by year five the median is £43,900.
Under Plan 5 loans for students in England, you repay 9% of earnings above £25,000 (2026), for up to 40 years (MoneySavingExpert). On a £33,000 aerospace graduate salary, that’s 9% of £8,000, or £720 a year, which comes to £60 a month. The repayment is small compared with what you earn.
A strong ranking doesn’t mean a degree suits you. If you pick Computer Science for the money and hate coding, you’ll struggle. Effort shows up in the results: graduates with a first-class degree have an 89.4% employment rate, against 84.3% for a third (2024, Department for Education).
The university matters as well. Some have close links with local aerospace and engineering firms and offer placement years that lead straight into graduate jobs. When you compare courses, check which employers each one works with and whether it offers a placement year, as well as the league table position.
Aerospace engineering student at the University of Hertfordshire, graduating July 2027, with a D*D*D* BTEC in Aviation Operations. On the quadcopter project I led manufacturing and got the frame from 210 g down to 33 g on a £130 budget. Co-founded Crosswind to give people straight answers about getting into aviation and aerospace.
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Honest aviation and aerospace career guidance for the next generation.