High Paying Engineering Jobs
To be an engineer, you need a degree, but once you have that piece of paper, you’ll be able to get a job in a very lucrative industry. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for engineers is approximately $111,000. Even the bottom 10% of engineers averaged over $70,000. Top engineers make much, much more.
“Engineering” is a little vague in terms of an industry. As a whole, someone who is an engineer physically designs and develops items. This can be everything from a new type of plastic to concrete buildings to farm machinery. Here are some of the most common types of engineers:
- Aeronautical/Aerospace
- Agricultural
- Chemical
- Civil
- Computer
- Electrical
- Geological
- Industrial
- Materials
- Mechanical
- Nuclear
- Petroleum
Most employers who hire engineers prefer for candidates to have at least a master’s degree.
The good news is that many will hire talented engineers fresh out college and then pay for you to get a master’s degree or even a doctorate.
In some engineering careers, you can even work for your college while you finish getting an advanced degree. There are a lot of possibilities in this field.
Within each of the categories listed above, there are even more specialized fields. For example, if you’re a civil engineer, you might specialize in designing and planning roads. The more you specialize, the more money you can make, since you’ll be the most qualified person for the job and you’ll bring a lot of value to the table. At the same time, though, the more specialized your field the harder it is to find a job in most cases.
The engineering industry is fairly secure, meaning that there will always be jobs open and there will always been room for you to advance. With new technology being introduced all the time, the world of engineering is always changing, so this is a fast-paced, exciting, and lucrative career field.