Engineers face challenges when they are to manage project groups and be leaders for organisations becausesuch positions demand skills in social competence and empathy. Previous studies have shown that engineershave low degrees of social competence skills. In this study, the level of empathy as measured by the foursubscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, perspective taking, fantasy, empathic distress and empathicconcern, among engineering students was compared to students in health care profession programmes.Participants were undergraduate students at Linköping University, 365 students from four different healthcare profession programmes and 115 students from two different engineering programmes. When theempathy measures were corrected for effects of sex, engineering students from one of the programmes hadlower empathy than psychology and socialworker students on the fantasy and perspective-taking subscales.These results raise questions regarding opportunities for engineering students to develop their empathicabilities. It is important that engineering students acquire both theoretical and practical knowledge andskills regarding empathy.