---
title: "Aerospace Engineer"
description: "Perform engineering duties in designing, constructing, and testing aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. May conduct basic and applied research to evaluate…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Aerospace Engineer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2011.00

Perform engineering duties in designing, constructing, and testing aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. May conduct basic and applied research to evaluate adaptability of materials and equipment to aircraft design and manufacture. May recommend improvements in testing equipment and techniques.

Also advertised as: Aeronautical Engineer; Aerospace Engineer; Aerospace Stress Engineer; Avionics Engineer; Design Engineer; Flight Controls Engineer; Flight Test Engineer; Structural Analysis Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $134,960 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $64.89/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $86,700 to $205,890, with the middle half between $106,110 and $169,690
- **Total US employment:** 67,710
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 22/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 67,710 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $86,700 |
| 25th | $106,110 |
| 50th (median) | $134,960 |
| 75th | $169,690 |
| 90th | $205,890 |
| Mean (average) | $142,060 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MN | $159,060 | $161,284 | 140 |
| WA | $158,370 | $147,991 | 5,760 |
| CA | $157,620 | $142,359 | 9,170 |
| DC | $157,600 | $143,402 | 290 |
| MD | $156,750 | $149,344 | 3,180 |
| CO | $156,190 | $151,564 | 4,070 |
| MA | $149,470 | $141,333 | 990 |
| VT | $144,400 | $147,410 | 100 |
| VA | $143,210 | $141,646 | 2,540 |
| GA | $140,460 | $145,867 | 2,230 |
| OH | $138,440 | $149,223 | 3,710 |
| HI | $137,240 | $124,819 | 40 |
| SC | $137,030 | $146,167 | 650 |
| LA | $136,970 | $155,282 | 90 |
| UT | $135,840 | $137,401 | 1,010 |

26 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 41 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aerospace-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 71,600 in the 2024–2034 base year to 75,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 4,400 jobs, or +6.1%. Faster than average: 6.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 59.1% |
| Master's Degree | 33.3% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 7.6% |

## What the work involves

- Analyze project requests, proposals, or engineering data to determine feasibility, productibility, cost, or production time of aerospace or aeronautical products.
- Formulate conceptual design of aeronautical or aerospace products or systems to meet customer requirements or conform to environmental regulations.
- Write technical reports or other documentation, such as handbooks or bulletins, for use by engineering staff, management, or customers.
- Plan or conduct experimental, environmental, operational, or stress tests on models or prototypes of aircraft or aerospace systems or equipment.
- Direct or coordinate activities of engineering or technical personnel involved in designing, fabricating, modifying, or testing of aircraft or aerospace products.
- Evaluate product data or design from inspections or reports for conformance to engineering principles, customer requirements, environmental regulations, or quality standards.
- Formulate mathematical models or other methods of computer analysis to develop, evaluate, or modify design, according to customer engineering requirements.
- Develop design criteria for aeronautical or aerospace products or systems, including testing methods, production costs, quality standards, environmental standards, or completion dates.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Technology Design — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Physics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.05 |
| R — Realistic | 5.65 |
| C — Conventional | 4.44 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.52 |
| A — Artistic | 2.35 |
| S — Social | 1.25 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 88.2 |
| INTJ | 86.7 |
| ISTP | 86.3 |
| INTP | 71.0 |
| ESTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, INTJ, ISTP.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician) — median $82,890
- [Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electro-mechanical-and-mechatronics-technologist-and-technician) — median $73,900
- [Avionics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/avionics-technician) — median $82,280
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer) — median $104,110
- [Aircraft Mechanic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-mechanic) — median $79,870
- [Automotive Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/automotive-engineer) — median $104,110
- [Electronics Engineer, Except Computer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electronics-engineer) — median $130,220
- [Mechatronics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechatronics-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Marine Engineer and Naval Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marine-engineer-and-naval-architect) — median $112,230

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aerospace-engineer