Field Engineer

A field engineer installs, commissions, maintains and fixes equipment or systems at customer sites, on construction projects, or out on a network rather than in an office or factory. Depending on the sector that might mean telecoms cabinets and fibre, medical imaging scanners, wind turbines, industrial machinery, oil and gas wellsite equipment, rail signalling, or water and power infrastructure. The common thread is that you travel to where the kit or the site is, diagnose what is wrong or what needs building, and are the engineering company's technical face in front of the client.

Starting salary: £26k–£35k
Live graduate jobs: 22 open now
Main way in: Engineering graduate schemes
They usually ask for: An engineering or applied science degree in most cases

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £26,000–£35,000 to start, though this varies widely by sector, employer and location - energy, offshore and some specialist equipment roles start higher, and overtime, callout, standby and travel allowances can add significantly to the advertised base.

What you'd actually do

Travelling to sites - customer premises, construction sites, substations, plant rooms, offshore or remote locations - often with a van or pool car, sometimes several sites in a day, sometimes one site for weeks
Diagnosing faults on equipment using test instruments, diagnostic software, drawings and schematics, then either fixing it on the spot or arranging parts and a return visit
Commissioning: setting up and testing newly installed equipment against specification, running through checklists, and signing off that it works safely and correctly
Writing up what you did - service reports, test certificates, as-built drawings, defect lists, photographs - which is often how your employer gets paid and how the client proves compliance

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Explaining technical problems to customers who may not be engineers, including delivering unwelcome news about cost, downtime or lead times on spare parts
Completing risk assessments and method statements before starting work, checking permits, isolating equipment safely and following lock-off procedures
Liaising by phone or video with design engineers, project managers or a technical helpdesk back at base when something is beyond what you can resolve alone

How graduates get in

Engineering graduate schemes - common in utilities, telecoms, rail, energy and large equipment manufacturers. Many rotate you through design, projects and operations with a field placement, then let you specialise.
Direct entry as a graduate or trainee field engineer, advertised year-round rather than in an autumn recruitment cycle. This is very common - many field engineering employers recruit when they have a vacancy rather than running a formal scheme.
Moving across from a technician or apprentice background after topping up with a degree or HNC/HND - a well-trodden route, and these candidates are often favoured because they already have hands-on skill.
Degree apprenticeships in engineering, which combine paid work with part-time study and frequently include field-based placements; a strong route if you decide before or shortly after A-levels.

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Industrial placement years or summer internships with engineering contractors, equipment suppliers or utilities, which often convert into graduate offers.
Entry from a non-engineering science degree (physics, maths, applied science) into sectors like medical devices, scientific instruments or energy, where employers train you on their specific equipment. Less common but genuinely happens.

What employers ask for

An engineering or applied science degree in most cases - mechanical, electrical, electronic, civil, mining, petroleum, building services, mechatronics or similar. The specific discipline matters more here than in many graduate jobs because you will be working on real plant, so an electrical background for power work and mechanical for rotating machinery is the usual expectation.
Often a 2:2 or above rather than a strict 2:1, particularly at smaller contractors and service companies; large graduate schemes are more likely to ask for a 2:1. This varies a lot by employer.
A full UK driving licence is very frequently essential, because the job involves getting yourself and your tools to site. Check this early - it is one of the most common hard requirements.
Willingness to travel, stay away overnight, and in some sectors work shifts, standby rotas or offshore rotations. Employers screen for this explicitly.

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Safety and access certification - a CSCS card for construction sites, and sector-specific tickets such as confined space, working at height, electrical authorisation, IOSH or NEBOSH courses. Employers normally pay for and arrange these once you start rather than expecting them up front.
Many employers expect you to work towards Incorporated or Chartered Engineer status (IEng or CEng) through a professional institution such as the IET, IMechE or ICE, and some are accredited to train you towards it.

Skills that matter

Structured fault-finding

You need a method for narrowing down a problem from symptoms to root cause rather than swapping parts and hoping, because every wrong guess costs a site visit.

Reading engineering drawings and schematics

Wiring diagrams, P&IDs, GA drawings and control logic are how you work out what should be happening before you decide what has gone wrong.

Practical hand skills and comfort with tools and test equipment

Multimeters, torque wrenches, pressure gauges, laptops running diagnostic software - the job is physical as well as analytical, and graduates who have never used tools find the first year harder.

Clear technical writing

Your service report is often the only record of the work; it supports warranty claims, invoices and safety compliance, and a vague report creates disputes months later.

Handling frustrated customers on their own site

You frequently turn up when something expensive has broken and production has stopped, so staying calm and explaining realistic timescales protects the commercial relationship.

Safety judgement and the willingness to stop work

You are often alone or in a small team with no supervisor present, so deciding that a job is unsafe to continue is genuinely your call and employers take it seriously.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Trainee or graduate field engineer: shadowing an experienced engineer, working through a competency sign-off list, and gradually being released to attend simpler jobs alone. This typically takes a year or two but varies widely by sector - complex medical or offshore equipment takes considerably longer.
Field engineer working independently, then senior field engineer handling the harder faults, commissioning new installations and mentoring trainees.
A fork in the road: stay technical as a specialist, lead engineer or technical authority on a particular product or system; or move into leading people as a field service manager or operations manager with a team and a region.
Many move off the road entirely into related roles - project management, design or applications engineering, technical sales and pre-sales, commissioning management, training delivery, or health and safety - using the site credibility as the differentiator.
Chartered or Incorporated status with a professional institution is a common milestone a few years in, and is often expected for senior technical authority or consultancy roles. Timelines here vary a lot with how much evidence of responsibility you can gather.

What people get wrong

“It's a hands-on job for people who weren't academic enough for design engineering.”

Field engineers routinely diagnose problems that the design team could not reproduce in a lab, with incomplete information and a customer waiting. Many employers treat field experience as the strongest grounding for later design and project roles precisely because you see how things actually fail.

“You spend your days fixing things.”

A large share of the week goes on driving, paperwork, risk assessments, waiting for permits or parts, and talking to customers. The spanner-in-hand portion is often smaller than people expect, and the admin genuinely affects whether your employer gets paid.

“The pay is modest because it is a practical role.”

Base salaries are often unremarkable, but overtime, callout and standby payments, travel time, offshore or shift allowances and a company vehicle can make total earnings noticeably higher than the advertised base. The trade-off is unsocial hours and time away from home.

“It's a solitary job with little responsibility early on.”

You are frequently the only representative of your company on a customer's site, making safety and commercial judgement calls alone within months of being signed off. That level of independence comes much earlier than in most office-based graduate roles.

Where this varies

"Field engineer" covers very different jobs depending on the sector. In telecoms and IT infrastructure it can be closer to installation and network troubleshooting, with a high volume of short visits. In medical devices, scientific instruments and industrial machinery it is product-specific service engineering, with long manufacturer training and a defined customer base. In energy, oil and gas it can mean rotational work offshore or at wellsites with long shifts and extended time away. In construction, civils and utilities it often sits closer to site engineering - setting out, supervising works and checking installation against drawings. Geography matters too: work tends to cluster around infrastructure, manufacturing and energy regions, and some roles are home-based with a patch to cover rather than tied to an office. Check the advert carefully for driving licence requirements, the size of the territory, and whether nights away or a standby rota are involved, because these differ enormously and shape day-to-day life more than the job title does.

See all 22 live Field Engineer jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.