Dear Aspirant,

I have completed my graduation in chemical engg. in year 2016 & have been working in the core field for 10 months. Currently I am working in Tata Motors, Jamshedpur plant as a trainee. So basically I am a fresher & hence my answer will be focused on the freshers side only.



To be precise, a chemical engineer is mostly is a process engineer. Where ever there is a process involving chemical changes, a chemical engineer is needed. You need a chemical or process engineer to monitor the process, control it & suggest necessary changes. So by this decision virtually every production firm requires a chemical engineer.Although the number of chemical engineers required will be less than mechanical or electrical ones but process engineers are vital part of any plant.



So the scope of chemical engineering is vast. You might get a chance to work with wide range of industries, cement, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, plastics, soaps & detergents, oil & gas, food & beverages to name a few. If you are graduating from a good college like NITs or IITs, mostly you will be placed in the campus recruitment in a good company. Your average package will range anything from 4.5 to 12 LPA. Oil companies tend to pay more, mostly above 10 LPA while the rest of the sectors mostly offer 6 or below to freshers even when they are recruiting from good colleges.



Now if you are not from a very flashy college, you may find hard time getting placed in the core sector. But vacancies for freshers are always open in chemical engineering. For an off-campus placement, your package will be somewhat in between 36 LPA but experience will pay off sooner or later. Since most of the tech graduates are switching fields to management & analytics. So a process engineer with experience is not common to find.



Other than private sector,



you can always give GATE exam to go for higher studies in India or get jobs in PSUs like ONGC, HPCL, IOCL etc. They have handsome pay packages & less work load compared to private sector[this may not be always true though].

After higher studies you work in R& D departments of production firms. If you are innovative & have genuine interest in chemical engg. this is the best way for you.

There are many sister streams of chemical engineering which have less work pressure & stable job like pollution control, process safety, environment management & quality control.

Hope I have made my self clear.

Best Wishes!