Mechanical vs Electrical: Placements, PSU Jobs & Future

Every year during JEE counselling, lakhs of students stare at the same choice: Mechanical or Electrical? Both are “core” branches. Both have been around since engineering colleges first opened in India. Both promise solid careers. And both share an uncomfortable modern reality that nobody talks about during orientation.

Let’s get into it honestly.

What You’ll Actually Study for Four Years

Mechanical Engineering is broad. Seriously broad. Your curriculum will cover thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, strength of materials, manufacturing processes, machine design, heat transfer, IC engines, refrigeration and air conditioning, industrial engineering, and CAD/CAM. You’ll spend time in workshops machining metal, learning about lathes, and building an intuition for how physical things work. If you enjoy asking “how is this thing made?” about everything from a car engine to a pressure cooker, Mechanical is your language.

Electrical Engineering is built on circuits and fields. Expect heavy doses of circuit theory, electromagnetic fields, power systems, electrical machines (motors, transformers, generators), control systems, power electronics, and signals & systems. If your college has a combined EE department, you’ll also touch microprocessors, digital electronics, and communication systems. The abstract maths content is higher — Laplace transforms, Fourier analysis, and complex algebra are your daily bread.

The difference in classroom experience is tangible. Mechanical labs have you working with physical machines and measuring instruments. Electrical labs have you wiring circuits, working with oscilloscopes, and occasionally getting a mild shock that your professor finds educational.

Industry Demand: The Ground Reality in India

Mechanical engineers are needed in manufacturing plants, automobile factories, steel mills, power equipment companies, oil & gas, HVAC companies, and aerospace. Companies like Tata Motors, L&T, Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Thermax, and BHEL have traditionally been strong mechanical recruiters. The catch? Many of these jobs are in industrial towns — Jamshedpur, Pune’s Chakan belt, Chennai’s Sriperumbudur corridor, not in Bengaluru’s tech parks.

Electrical engineers find demand in power generation and distribution companies (NTPC, Power Grid, state electricity boards), electronics manufacturing, automation companies (Siemens, ABB, Schneider Electric), renewable energy firms, and the broader electronics industry. With India’s push into solar energy, EV infrastructure, and smart grids, electrical demand has a forward-looking edge.

Neither branch faces a shortage of opportunities — but neither has the volume of openings that CSE/IT enjoys. That’s just the truth.

Core Job Salaries: Setting Expectations

Let’s talk numbers without sugarcoating:

Entry-level core roles (0-2 years):

• Mechanical (manufacturing/design/maintenance): ₹3.5-6 lakh per annum
• Electrical (power/automation/electronics): ₹3.5-7 lakh per annum

After GATE → PSU appointment:

• Both branches: ₹8-12 lakh starting (with incredible job security and benefits)

5-8 years experience in core:

• Mechanical: ₹10-18 lakh (design engineers, production managers)
• Electrical: ₹10-20 lakh (power systems engineers, automation leads)

Senior roles (15+ years):

• Both can reach ₹25-50 lakh in senior management, plant head, or specialist consultant roles

The starting salaries won’t compete with what a decent CSE grad gets from an IT company. That’s the trade-off of core engineering — slower start, but deep domain expertise that compounds over a career.

The Elephant in the Room: “Both End Up in IT Anyway”

Yes. Let’s address it. A significant chunk of both Mechanical and Electrical graduates end up in IT/software companies. Mass recruiters like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and Cognizant hire from all branches. Many students from both streams prepare for coding placements, clear DSA rounds, and join as software engineers.

Is this a failure of the education system or a rational career choice? Probably both. But here’s a nuance worth noting: Electrical engineers have a marginally easier pivot to tech-adjacent roles — embedded systems, VLSI design, IoT, and automation all sit at the intersection of EE and technology. A Mechanical engineer pivoting to software has to start more from scratch, though plenty do it successfully.

The real question is: if you’re planning to go into IT regardless, does your branch even matter? For mass recruiters — not really. For specialised tech roles — sometimes yes, sometimes no.

When Mechanical Genuinely Excels

• Automotive industry: Design roles at Tata Motors, Mahindra R&D, Maruti, and the growing EV startup space are squarely Mechanical territory.
• Defence and aerospace: DRDO, HAL, ISRO — all recruit Mechanical engineers heavily for structural design, propulsion systems, and thermal management. If building rockets or fighter jets excites you, Mechanical is the path.
• Oil & gas and heavy industry: ONGC, Indian Oil, Reliance, L&T’s EPC division — pipeline design, refinery operations, and plant maintenance are Mechanical domains.
• Product design and manufacturing startups: India’s growing D2C and hardware startup ecosystem needs people who understand manufacturing, materials, and product development.

When Electrical Wins

• Power sector: India is adding generation capacity, upgrading transmission networks, and overhauling distribution. NTPC, Power Grid Corporation, NHPC, and state DISCOMs need Electrical engineers at every level.
• PSU recruitment through GATE: Electrical consistently has among the highest number of PSU vacancies through GATE — NTPC, PGCIL, BHEL, Coal India, IOCL, and many state-level utilities recruit EE graduates.
• Renewable energy: Solar farm design, wind turbine systems, battery storage, and EV charging infrastructure — all fundamentally Electrical engineering problems.
• Electronics and semiconductor: With India’s semiconductor push (Micron in Gujarat, Tata in Assam), EE graduates with VLSI/electronics focus are increasingly in demand.
• Automation and control: Industry 4.0, smart factories, PLC programming, and robotics controls — Electrical engineers with a control systems background fit naturally.

The GATE and PSU Angle

Both Mechanical and Electrical are excellent for the GATE → PSU route, but the dynamics differ:

• GATE ME has the highest number of aspirants of any branch. Competition is intense, but the number of PSU vacancies is also very high.
• GATE EE has slightly fewer aspirants and a strong vacancy count, especially from power sector PSUs.

Cut-off percentiles for top PSUs are comparable for both branches. If PSU is your goal, either branch works — but Electrical has a slight structural advantage because power sector growth directly translates to EE hiring.

The Honest Bottom Line

Choose Mechanical if you’re drawn to physical systems, machines, manufacturing, and you can see yourself on a factory floor or in an R&D lab designing tangible products. Choose Electrical if power systems, circuits, electronics, or automation make you curious, and you want slightly more flexibility to pivot between power, electronics, and tech-adjacent domains.

Don’t choose based on placement statistics alone — those numbers change every year and are heavily influenced by which companies visit your specific college. Choose based on which subjects you’d actually enjoy studying for four years, because that’s what determines whether you’ll be a competent engineer or just another degree holder.