Electrical & Electronic Engineers develop and apply technologies in all sectors of industry to meet demands for ever more efficient, smart and integrated electrical and electronic products.

The programme covers the breadth of technologies needed by graduates to develop miniaturized microelectronic components used in computers, mobile phones, smart wearable devices and appliances; through to the electrical circuits applied in large systems like electric vehicles, electrical power generation, medical equipment and aerospace applications.

Graduates are employed in a range of industries including electricity supply and distribution, microelectronics, medical devices, telecommunications, process control and automation.

Facilities & Staff

Staff and students of Electrical & Electronic Engineering are located in the purpose built Alice Perry Engineering Building where they have have access to the newest laboratory and teaching facilities in the largest engineering building in the country. Several sources of renewable and sustainable energy are included in the building structure and networked metering has been installed to allow students of the Electrical & Electronic Engineering programme to use the building as a real-life example of an energy laboratory.

The Electrical & Electronic Engineering staff team are highly motivated in teaching and several staff members have won awards for their novel teaching methods.

Research Activities

Staff are also very active in research in areas such as power electronics, renewable energy systems, consumer electronics and biomedical applications, with many projects running in conjunction with local and national industry. Many of our student projects are based on industrial research projects so that students are provided with first-hand experience of state-of-art technologies in these areas.

Career Opportunities

Career opportunities for Electrical & Electronic Engineers continue to be plentiful and varied. With the ongoing emphasis on energy and efficiency, there is an increasing requirement for graduates in electrical generation, transmission and distribution in companies like ESB and Eirgrid.

Semiconductor manufacturing and design provides another dynamic career path, with many of the world’s leading companies located in Ireland including Intel, Analog Devices, On Semiconductor, Texas Instruments and Microsemi.

Demands for expertise in electrical automation and control are also rising, particularly in the biomedical devices and pharmaceutical sectors, while the ongoing growth in demands for telecommunications provides yet another exciting career option in the development and testing of new devices and infrastructure.

According to the State of Ireland 2017 report by Engineers Ireland, there is currently a huge demand for engineers, and it is expected that job opportunities for Electrical and Electronic Engineers both nationally and internationally will continue to grow in the coming years.

This creates a wide range of job opportunities for our graduates and also leads to higher salaries. The most recent Engineers Ireland Salary Survey shows that Electrical and Electronic Engineers are amongst the highest paid in all of the engineering and technology disciplines. In 2014, the median salary for a Chartered Electrical/Electronic Engineer in Ireland was €73,000. This figure is growing year on year (Source)

Below are just some of the companies that NUI Galway’s recent Electrical and Electronic Engineering graduates are working in:

  • Analog Devices
  • Bord Gáis
  • Ericsson
  • ESB
  • IBM
  • Intel
  • Medtronic
  • O2
  • Valeo