---
title: "Carbon Capture Engineer"
description: "Designs and runs systems that capture carbon dioxide from industrial plants or the air and move it to permanent storage or use."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/carbon-capture-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Carbon Capture Engineer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2041 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2041.00

Designs and runs systems that capture carbon dioxide from industrial plants or the air and move it to permanent storage or use.

Also advertised as: CCS Engineer; Carbon Capture and Storage Engineer; Carbon Removal Engineer; Direct Air Capture Engineer; CCUS Process Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $125,040 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $60.12/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $79,420 to $182,880, with the middle half between $97,820 and $157,190
- **Total US employment:** 21,070
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 26/100 — 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 21,070 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $79,420 |
| 25th | $97,820 |
| 50th (median) | $125,040 |
| 75th | $157,190 |
| 90th | $182,880 |
| Mean (average) | $129,980 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NM | $158,190 | $171,550 | 160 |
| VA | $136,380 | $134,891 | 790 |
| AL | $135,030 | $152,021 | 600 |
| LA | $134,800 | $152,822 | 730 |
| DE | $133,670 | $133,927 | 370 |
| TX | $132,750 | $136,775 | 2,610 |
| WV | $129,210 | $144,374 | 160 |
| NY | $129,060 | $119,587 | 540 |
| WA | $128,290 | $119,883 | 650 |
| OK | $127,790 | $145,475 | 110 |
| MT | $127,490 | $134,703 | 80 |
| MD | $127,190 | $121,181 | 500 |
| NJ | $126,760 | $116,502 | 440 |
| CO | $125,800 | $122,074 | 720 |
| IL | $121,560 | $121,611 | 520 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 21,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 22,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,000 jobs, or +4.7%. Faster than average: 4.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,100 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 | 91.3% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.4% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 4.4% |

## What the work involves

- Design carbon dioxide capture processes using solvents, sorbents or membranes
- Run process simulations to optimize energy use and cost
- Size compression, dehydration and pipeline systems
- Support Class VI injection well permit applications
- Commission and test pilot and demonstration plants
- Analyze operating data to improve capture performance
- Prepare techno-economic analyses for projects

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Science — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.3 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
- Production and Processing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- 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
- 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

## 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.27 |
| I — Investigative | 5.91 |
| C — Conventional | 4.70 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.85 |
| A — Artistic | 1.80 |
| S — Social | 1.02 |

### 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 | 90.0 |
| ISTP | 86.2 |
| INTJ | 83.7 |
| INTP | 66.9 |
| ESTJ | 64.6 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP. 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.

- [Chemical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemical-engineer) — median $125,040
- [Materials Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/materials-engineer) — median $112,860
- [Manufacturing Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/manufacturing-engineer) — median $102,440
- [Materials Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/materials-scientist) — median $117,790
- [Chemist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemist) — median $91,240
- [Biofuels/Biodiesel Technology and Product Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biofuels-biodiesel-technology-and-product-development-manager) — median $171,270
- [Industrial Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineer) — median $102,440
- [Petroleum Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/petroleum-engineer) — median $144,910
- [Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer) — median $104,110
- [Nuclear Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-engineer) — median $133,970

## 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/
- **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/carbon-capture-engineer