---
title: "Bioengineer and Biomedical Engineer"
description: "Apply knowledge of engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, and biomechanical principles to the design, development, and evaluation of…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioengineer-and-biomedical-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Bioengineer and Biomedical Engineer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2031.00

Apply knowledge of engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, and biomechanical principles to the design, development, and evaluation of biological, agricultural, and health systems and products, such as artificial organs, prostheses, instrumentation, medical information systems, and health management and care delivery systems.

Also advertised as: Biomedical Engineer; Biomedical Technician (Biomedical Tech); Engineer; Process Engineer; Research Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $109,370 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $52.58/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $71,850 to $168,180, with the middle half between $86,980 and $136,600
- **Total US employment:** 23,480
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +7.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 28/100 — 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 23,480 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $71,850 |
| 25th | $86,980 |
| 50th (median) | $109,370 |
| 75th | $136,600 |
| 90th | $168,180 |
| Mean (average) | $116,890 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AZ | $141,230 | $140,280 | 610 |
| ID | $133,750 | $140,061 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $128,310 | $115,887 | 2,750 |
| MN | $127,730 | $129,516 | 1,230 |
| MA | $127,570 | $120,626 | 4,740 |
| PA | $122,560 | $125,610 | 950 |
| OR | $122,510 | $118,526 | 150 |
| NJ | $114,680 | $105,400 | 680 |
| OH | $111,550 | $120,238 | 700 |
| CO | $110,650 | $107,373 | Not published by BLS |
| WI | $110,430 | $117,360 | 180 |
| OK | $109,340 | $124,472 | 70 |
| IN | $108,030 | $115,752 | 620 |
| TN | $106,470 | $115,892 | 170 |
| VA | $106,140 | $104,981 | 330 |

23 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 38 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioengineer-and-biomedical-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/bioengineer-and-biomedical-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 23,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 25,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,800 jobs, or +7.6%. Much faster than average: 7.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,200 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## 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 | 43.5% |
| Master's Degree | 26.1% |
| Doctoral Degree | 13.0% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 13.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 4.4% |

## What the work involves

- Prepare technical reports, data summary documents, or research articles for scientific publication, regulatory submissions, or patent applications.
- Design or develop medical diagnostic or clinical instrumentation, equipment, or procedures, using the principles of engineering and biobehavioral sciences.
- Adapt or design computer hardware or software for medical science uses.
- Maintain databases of experiment characteristics or results.
- Develop statistical models or simulations, using statistical or modeling software.
- Read current scientific or trade literature to stay abreast of scientific, industrial, or technological advances.
- Conduct research, along with life scientists, chemists, and medical scientists, on the engineering aspects of the biological systems of humans and animals.
- Manage teams of engineers by creating schedules, tracking inventory, creating or using budgets, or overseeing contract obligations or deadlines.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Technology Design — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Programming — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Physics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 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 | 6.75 |
| R — Realistic | 5.44 |
| C — Conventional | 4.48 |
| S — Social | 2.45 |
| A — Artistic | 2.11 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.84 |

### 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 | 84.2 |
| ISTP | 83.2 |
| INTJ | 82.7 |
| INTP | 69.3 |
| ISFJ | 60.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP, INTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Nanotechnology Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nanotechnology-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $66,120
- [Nanosystems Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nanosystems-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Bioinformatics Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-scientist) — median $98,920
- [Biochemist and Biophysicist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biochemist-and-biophysicist) — median $127,410
- [Molecular and Cellular Biologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molecular-and-cellular-biologist) — median $98,920
- [Bioinformatics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-technician) — median $81,490
- [Data Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-scientist) — median $120,230
- [Industrial Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $66,120
- [Chemist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemist) — median $91,240
- [Chemical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemical-engineer) — median $125,040

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 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, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 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 31.0 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/bioengineer-and-biomedical-engineer