PCB designer salary in 2025 maps more cleanly than most software titles, and then gets muddy again at the boundary with engineering. The Occupational Outlook Handbook says electronics drafters produce wiring diagrams, assembly diagrams for circuit boards, and layout drawings used in manufacturing and repair. Those drafters are paid with electrical drafters. The May 2025 median for the combined group was $76,870. The mean was $81,280.
That is the best official wage for board layout. It is not the wage for the engineer who designs the circuit the board must carry. Electronics engineers, except computer, had a median of $130,220. The distance between those medians is the whole argument.
Layout is a drafter job in the handbook
Electrical drafters draw wiring for buildings, plants, and distribution. Electronics drafters draw the boards and the devices. One median covers both, which means a PCB designer and a building electrical drafter share $76,870 even when their labor markets feel different. The survey thinks the work is alike enough to average. Local offers may not. Electrical drafter salary 2025 is the full occupation, including the building half you may want to set aside.
About 18,900 people were in the handbook count for 2025, or about 17,920 in the wage release. It is a small group. A few semiconductor and electronics employers can dominate what job seekers see in a city without moving the national median much. The median hourly wage was $36.96. The mean hourly wage was $39.08, and the annual mean of $81,280 sits above the median because higher wages pull the average.
ECAD is the family name for the tools, including the layout packages employers list next to the title. The wage table does not contain those product names. A designer who places footprints, routes traces, and releases fabrication files is in the drafter description. A designer who also does the schematic architecture and the signal integrity may have crossed into engineering. The title will not confess. The task list will.
Engineer pay, including the semiconductor cell people quote
| May 2025 median | Wage |
|---|---|
| Electrical and electronics drafters | $76,870 |
| Electrical and electronic engineering technicians, mean annual | $80,680 |
| Electrical engineers | $120,630 |
| Electronics engineers, except computer | $130,220 |
| Electronics engineers in semiconductor manufacturing | $146,700 |
| Electronics engineers in engineering services | $125,150 |
| Electronics engineers in telecommunications | $109,040 |
The technician mean of $80,680 is close to the drafter mean and describes a different week: building and testing hardware rather than drawing it. CAD technician salary 2025 separates those codes. For PCB work, stay with the drafter median unless the bench is the job.
Electronics engineers in semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing had a median of $146,700. That is the number most likely to be waved at a layout designer because the industry words match. It is an engineer median in a high paying industry. The lowest 10 percent of electronics engineers, across all industries, earned less than $81,840, which is near the drafter mean. The highest 10 percent earned more than $206,960. A layout designer is not that distribution. An engineer who lays out boards as part of circuit design might be.
A small occupation with a slight decline
Employment of electrical and electronics drafters is projected to fall 3 percent from 2025 to 2035, from about 18,900 to about 18,200. The bureau expects CAD tools to keep reducing the hours needed to document a design, and it expects engineers to keep tasks in house. Layout software has been automating routing for years. The occupation is still in the table. The projection says it gets a little smaller.
Openings continue when people leave. They are a thin share of the roughly 14,400 drafter openings a year the handbook expects across all specialties. A national decline of 3 percent is not a local hiring freeze, and it is not a reason to quote the semiconductor engineer median in its place.
How to use $76,870
If the deliverable is fabrication data, assembly drawings, and a board that matches someone else's schematic, $76,870 is the middle of the official occupation in May 2025. Offers near the all drafter median of $68,090 are below the middle of this specialty. Offers near the drafter top tenth, over $102,590, are high for drafters as a whole and still below the electronics engineer median.
If the deliverable includes the circuit, move to design engineer salary 2025 and use $130,220, or the industry cell if the employer is a semiconductor plant, a consultancy, or a telecom company. CAD designer salary 2025 is the general version of this title problem. PCB is the rare case where the handbook mentions the actual artifact, the circuit board, inside the drafter definition. Use that gift. Then stop before you borrow the engineer wage.
Sources
- Occupational Outlook Handbook, Drafters. Electronics drafter duties and the May 2025 median.
- Occupational Outlook Handbook, Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Medians and semiconductor industry pay.
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Drafter and technician means.