Civil Engineer
| Median wage (USD) | 100840 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | 6 |
| AI exposure (%) | 38 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 61 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Computing load and grade requirements, water flow rates or material stress factors to determine design specifications (73 out of 100), planning and designing transportation or hydraulic systems and structures with computer-assisted design tools (72), analysing survey reports, maps, drawings, aerial photography and other topographical or geological data (67), estimating quantities and the cost of materials, equipment or labour to establish a project's feasibility (64) and preparing or presenting public reports — bid proposals, deeds, environmental impact statements, property and right-of-way descriptions (63) — are the O*NET profile's five most delegable tasks, and five tasks of computation, quantity take-off and documentation. Work activities confirm it: getting information (89 out of 100), making decisions and solving problems (86), communicating with supervisors, peers or subordinates (82), drafting, laying out and specifying technical devices, parts and equipment (79), evaluating information to determine compliance with standards (79), working with computers (78), processing information (76) and analysing data (73). BLS describes the gesture itself: "Engineers use computer-aided design (CAD) software to create detailed project plans". The calculation, the options, the quantities, the estimates and the project documentation all move to the tool. BLS puts the median wage for civil engineers at $100,840 in May 2025 ($48.48 an hour) — under $68,240 for the lowest 10%, over $163,220 for the highest 10% — against $50,980 for all workers. The best-paying industries are the federal government ($117,790), local government ($113,640) and state government ($102,440); engineering services, which employ 51% of the 380,600 civil engineers, pay $100,620, and nonresidential building construction $82,400. The projection is +6% between 2025 and 2035 — faster than the 3% average — taking employment to 405,100 in 2035 (+24,500), with about 22,700 openings a year, mostly replacing workers who leave. BLS explicitly ties that volume to infrastructure investment — bridges, roads, water systems, treatment plants — and warns that employment "may fluctuate with the availability of project funds": this is an order book written by public budgets. Entry is gated by licensure: a bachelor's degree is the typical threshold according to BLS, with no related work experience and no on-the-job training, but a Professional Engineer (PE) licence is required as soon as you provide services directly to the public — an accredited degree, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, several years of supervised practice and the PE exam; O*NET places the profile in Job Zone Four and 86% of its respondents say a bachelor's degree is required. The site and the accountability that comes with it remain human: directing engineering activities while ensuring compliance with environmental, safety and other government regulations (81 out of 100), testing soils and materials to determine the adequacy and strength of foundations, concrete, asphalt or steel (80), managing and directing construction, operations or maintenance at the project site (75), inspecting sites to monitor progress and verify conformance to design specifications and safety or sanitation standards (75) and directing or taking part in surveying to lay out installations, reference points, grades and elevations (67) are the tasks the Eloundou study leaves untouched, up to 61% of the occupation at most. The working pattern confirms it: 100% of O*NET respondents use e-mail daily, 90% the telephone, 76% hold face-to-face discussions daily, 75% work indoors in an environmentally controlled setting, 52% rate accuracy as extremely important and 57% work more than 40 hours a week. Responsibility is the core of the job: 43% of respondents consider that a mistake not easily corrected would have extremely serious consequences and 19% report a lot of decision-making freedom. The top-rated skills are active listening (75), then complex problem solving, critical thinking, mathematics, reading comprehension and speaking (72). 29% of respondents rate the job "moderately automated", 48% "slightly automated" and 14% "not at all automated". |
| Key skills | Structural design and analysis: mechanics of materials, reinforced concrete, steel framing, foundations and geotechnics, hydraulics and hydrology, roads and pavements · digital tools: CAD (AutoCAD, Civil 3D), building information modeling (BIM, Revit), structural analysis (SAP2000, ETABS), geographic information systems (GIS), project planning and management · surveying and topography: surveys, setting out, grades and elevations, reading maps, drawings and aerial photography · regulation: building codes, environmental and safety standards, permits, impact statements, accessibility · project and construction management: quantity and cost estimating, tendering, schedules, monitoring execution, coordinating contractors · materials and testing: soils, concrete, asphalt, steel, quality control · sustainable design: energy-efficient structures, stormwater and wastewater management, life-cycle analysis, climate adaptation · communication: drafting reports and proposals, public presentation, dealing with authorities and citizens · law and professional practice: engineering liability, PE licensure, professional conduct, insurance · generative AI tools for design options, quantity take-offs, estimates and specification drafting |
| Courses to get ahead | BIM Application for Engineers · Coursera (National Taiwan University) · ≈ 19 hours of workload · 89 · Producing the project — designing and sizing transportation systems and hydraulic structures (72 out of 100) and working from drawings, maps and topographical and geological data (67) — now happens inside the digital model, and BLS explicitly credits CAD software with creating detailed project plans. The course treats the model as an information model: coordination across disciplines, clash detection, quantities, drawing extraction. That is what keeps the engineer in charge of documentation as it automates, instead of being on the receiving end of it. Construction Cost Estimating and Cost Control · Coursera (Columbia University) · ≈ 23 hours of workload · 88 · Two opposite tasks are worked on together here: estimating quantities and the cost of materials, equipment and labour to establish feasibility (64 out of 100), the most delegable of the quantity take-off tasks, and preparing or presenting public reports — bid proposals, deeds, impact statements (63), which commit the engineer's responsibility towards the client and the authorities. The course covers estimating, budgeting, cost control and managing changes during construction: this is the part of the job where the figure produced has to hold up in front of an owner. Fundamentals of GIS · Coursera (University of California, Davis) · ≈ 23 hours of workload · 86 · Analysing survey reports, maps, drawings and aerial photography (67 out of 100) is a task of reading and cross-referencing spatial data, and surveying for setting out (67) produces part of it. The course works through layers, projections, spatial analysis and mapping: this is the tooling that lets an engineer check for themselves what a model produces from a dataset, instead of taking it as given. Construction Project Management · Coursera (Columbia University) · ≈ 30 hours of workload · 87 AI For Everyone · Coursera (DeepLearning.AI) · ≈ 7 hours of workload · 85 Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT · Coursera (Vanderbilt University) · ≈ 19 hours of workload · 83 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Construction Manager · 114990 · 9 · 40 Environmental Engineer · 107110 · 6 · 50 Surveyor · 75440 · 6 · 43 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou measures the civil engineer's exposure at 38% (human β) and up to 61% (human ζ): computing loads, grades, flow rates and stresses (73 out of 100), designing and sizing transportation systems and hydraulic structures with CAD (72), analysing survey reports, maps and aerial photography (67), estimating quantities and costs (64) and preparing public reports and bid proposals (63) are the O*NET profile's most directly delegable tasks, while directing engineering activities in compliance with regulations (81), testing soils and materials (80), managing and directing work on site (75), inspecting sites (75) and taking part in setting-out surveys (67) remain human. Within the repository, 38 puts the civil engineer 60th of the one hundred and one occupations: fifty-nine occupations have a higher exposure — from the translator (84) to the occupational therapist (39) —, three are tied with it (the nurse, the physician and the biologist, 38) and thirty-eight have a lower one, the nearest being the buyer and the tutor (37). Its ζ of 61 places it 56th: fifty-five occupations have a higher ζ — from the mathematician, the cybersecurity analyst and the proofreader (100) to the pharmacy technician (62) —, forty-five have a lower one and none is tied with it, the nearest below being the buyer and the economist (58). The SOC code used is 17-2051.00 "Civil Engineers": it is confirmed by the occupation's O*NET profile — exact code and title, updated 2026, Bright Outlook flag, Job Zone Four —, by the BLS projections table, which carries the line "Civil engineers" under code 17-2051, and by the Eloundou dataset, which carries a line titled exactly "Civil Engineers" under that code; O*NET files under it the reported titles "City Engineer", "Structural Engineer", "Geotechnical Engineer" and "Project Engineer", and keeps 17-2051.01 (Transportation Engineers) and 17-2051.02 (Water/Wastewater Engineers) separate. BLS puts the median wage for civil engineers at $100,840 in May 2025 ($48.48 an hour), against $50,980 for all workers; the lowest 10% earn less than $68,240 and the highest 10% more than $163,220. The projection is +6% between 2025 and 2035, "faster than average" at 3%: 380,600 jobs in 2025 are projected to reach 405,100 in 2035 (+24,500), with about 22,700 openings a year, mostly replacing workers who leave. BLS ties that growth to infrastructure investment — bridges, roads, water systems and treatment plants — and warns that employment "may fluctuate with the availability of project funds". Entry is gated by licensure: an accredited degree, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, supervised practice and the Professional Engineer (PE) exam to provide services directly to the public; a bachelor's degree is the typical BLS threshold, O*NET places the profile in Job Zone Four and 86% of its respondents say a bachelor's degree is required. The working setting is split between office and site: 100% of respondents use e-mail daily, 90% the telephone, 76% hold daily face-to-face discussions, 75% work indoors in an environmentally controlled environment, 52% rate accuracy as extremely important and 57% work more than 40 hours a week; 48% of respondents rate the job "slightly automated", 29% "moderately automated" and 14% "not at all automated". This card's three pivots are neighbouring occupations documented by BLS: the construction manager ($114,990, +9% between 2025 and 2035, human β 40), the environmental engineer ($107,110, +6%, human β 50) and the surveyor ($75,440, +6%, human β 43) all appear in the similar-occupations table on the civil engineer's OOH page. The median salary shown is $100,840 a year, or $48.48 an hour according to the May 2025 BLS profile. In the repository of one hundred and one occupations it ranks 27th: twenty-six occupations pay more, from the financial analyst ($101,350) to the physician ($239,200), and the civil engineer is ahead of the psychologist ($100,580), the physical therapist ($99,710) and the architect ($99,280), while the repository's median salary is $76,290 — the civil engineer sits 32% above it. The +6% growth is above the repository median (4%): twenty-eight occupations grow faster, eight at the same rate and sixty-four more slowly. The gap with neighbouring occupations is a matter of responsibility and specialisation — the construction manager pays 14% more and grows +9%, the environmental engineer 6% more, while the surveyor pays 25% less — and progression runs through the PE licence (only a licensed engineer signs the plans and serves the public), through command of BIM and the coordination of technical packages, and through specialisation (structures, geotechnics, transportation, water and wastewater, environment), which AI-assisted documentation does not replace. Every value on this card comes from a named source; only the task shares, derived from O*NET importance scores, and the course scores and durations are editorial estimates, documented in _ponderation. |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 45 · 82 |