It is actually very true that Civil Engineers are paid less in comparison to software engineers with similar experience.

It is due to the fact that Civil Engineering is a very old and developed branch. In fact it has the widest choice of pure sub branches amongst all Engineering subjects.

Now in comparison to software engineers, you’d see that four years of studying is simply not enough to do justice to the entire course. There are Masons out there working in a particular area for decades and can beat us with their knowledge of the local area.

Experience and using that experience for decision making matters a lot in Civil Engineering.

An Android developer might become a millionaire overnight if he can put his idea into an app. A software developer might mistake a colon for a semi colon, but can always come back and rectify.

But in Civil Engineering, you don’t have an undo option. If your 20 M tall pier has a tilt of a few mm to the side, it means you might exceed the budget. If you forgot addition of an admixture during concreting, the entire strength and stability would change.

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Civil Engineering is not only a 4 year course, we have to learn a lot afterwards in the field to be actually capable of giving back.

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Students of Civil Engineering may opt for IT jobs too, but then why we opt for Civil Engineering in first place?
Civil Engineers do have more job options than their software counterparts, esp Government jobs.