As it happens, I spent a chunk of Friday writing a long and detailed letter to my boss explaining why I'd appreciate the courtesy of a measurable payrise this year.
In my search for some evidence to back me up, I discovered that the Engineering Council (they had to do something useful eventually) publish a salary survey of all UK Engineers on their website.
If anybody wishes to take a look at it, you'll find it at...
http://www.engc.org.uk/gateway/3/Sur...rants_2000.pdf (it's about 20 pages long and takes a minute or two to download)
The EC has three grades (and if you're not registered shame on you) - CEng is for Engineers, IEng is for well educated Technicians and poorly educated Engineers, and Eng.Tech is for averagely educated technicians. They don't deal with mechanics.
Incidentally, somebody up there asked about Engineers .v. technicians .v. mechanics. Since I don't think he got answered...
Engineer - highly educated, carries authority to make design decisions.
Technician - highly trained, carries authority to make maintenance or working decisions. Works to documents written by Engineers.
Mechanic - semi-skilled or untrained, works normally under supervision of a technician. Little or no direct authority.
By which definition, most people called "licensed aircraft engineers" are technicians. I hasten to add that they are usually bloody good ones, and in my experience although the best Engineers are better paid than the best Technicians - in our industry an average Technician is better paid than an average Engineer.
Genghis,
Good Engineer, average technician.