How many mechanical design engineers are there in the world?  How does
this break down by major region (e.g. North America, Europe,
Asia/Pacific)?

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Request for Question Clarification by redhoss-ga on 08 Dec 2005 12:55 PST

I might have about the best answer to your question that you will get.
First, you use the term "mechanical design engineers". Does that mean
that you only want mechanical engineers that are directly involved in
the design of products that have mechanical parts. In other words,
would you exclude mechanical engineers involved in construction, power
plant design, maintenance, metallurgy, mining, etc. Or, do you just
mean people who have graduated from college with a degree in
Mechanical engineering. Also, would you accept an estimate (educated
guess) from a person that is a director of an organization that
represents mechanical engineers on a worldwide basis.

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Clarification of Question by mike_r1958-ga on 12 Dec 2005 01:50 PST

Well you certainly seem well-qualified to answer my question!  I am
interested in the (approximate) total number of qualified mechanical
engineers currently-practising mechanical design in any sphere
INCLUDING mechanical engineers involved in construction, power plant
design, maintenance, metallurgy, mining, etc.  I also need some
regional breakdown (North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific) which I hope
you will have if you represent mechanical engineers worldwide.  If you
have additional information on the proportion of the total who are
working for electronics companies or on mechanical design of
electronic equipment - I would pay double for this!

I am not interested in the number who graduated with a degree in ME (I
know too many ME-qualified people who ended up going into accountancy,
stockbroking etc!).

The more I think about it, I wouldn't accept this as an answer even
though it might be the best you will find.

A very rough estimate is 1,000,000 mechanical engineers around the
world, about a 1/3 in North America and South America, 1/3 in Europe
and Africa, and 1/3 in Asia.
 
Dave 
 
David J. Soukup, P.E.
Managing Director, Centers
ASME 
Three Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
phone: 1-212-591-7397
fax: 1-212-591-7739
soukupd@asme.org

I also heard back from ASME:

Thank you for contacting ASME.

Unfortunatly, we do not have the data on your request. At this time, I
don't have a source to which can be of assistance to you.

I hope that you are able to find the anwser to your questions.

Best regards,



Louis Tempesta
ASME Enterprise Support
22 Law Drive
Fairfield, NJ 07007

Ph# 1-800-843-2763
Fax# 1-973-882-8113
email: tempestal@asme.org 

If anyone has the info you require it should be these people, but they don't.

As a ME student myself, I read about some of those statistics in some
of my reference books. I think it's hard to define what is really a
mechanical engineer. In one of my books the author definitly defined a
group of people called Mechanical Engineers. But later he clarified
that people work in other fields,like Aerospace Engineering and
Petroleum, who do some job similar to those "professional" mechanical
engineers, can be called ME too.
One possible statistic might help.
Here's part of the census of engineers and other professions in the United States:
Engineers          Men            Women           Total
Mechanical         176,092        9,780           185,872
Aerospace          131,786        11,648          143,434
Industrial         151,859        24,474          176,333