---
title: "Civil Engineering Technologist and Technician"
description: "Apply theory and principles of civil engineering in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of structures and facilities under…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Civil Engineering Technologist and Technician

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-3022 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-3022.00

Apply theory and principles of civil engineering in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of structures and facilities under the direction of engineering staff or physical scientists.

Also advertised as: Civil Designer; Civil Engineering Assistant; Civil Engineering Technician; Design Technician; Engineer Technician; Engineering Assistant; Engineering Technician; Transportation Engineering Technician.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $64,950 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $31.23/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,220 to $98,980, with the middle half between $51,490 and $80,650
- **Total US employment:** 68,520
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 23/100 — 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 68,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,220 |
| 25th | $51,490 |
| 50th (median) | $64,950 |
| 75th | $80,650 |
| 90th | $98,980 |
| Mean (average) | $68,990 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OR | $85,390 | $82,613 | 970 |
| CA | $83,490 | $75,406 | 7,250 |
| WA | $79,580 | $74,365 | 2,090 |
| IL | $79,190 | $79,223 | 4,190 |
| MN | $78,690 | $79,790 | 2,030 |
| NV | $74,810 | $74,826 | 800 |
| VT | $74,100 | $75,645 | 200 |
| WI | $73,970 | $78,612 | 1,560 |
| NY | $73,790 | $68,374 | 1,710 |
| CT | $73,430 | $70,872 | 330 |
| IA | $72,540 | $82,655 | 1,130 |
| MA | $71,350 | $67,466 | 680 |
| AK | $70,990 | $69,354 | 230 |
| NJ | $70,650 | $64,933 | 760 |
| LA | $68,030 | $77,125 | 410 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 70,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 73,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,300 jobs, or +3.2%. About as fast as average: 3.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,100 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:** Associate's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 29.8% |
| Some College Courses | 28.1% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 21.2% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18.3% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 2.7% |

## What the work involves

- Calculate dimensions, square footage, profile and component specifications, and material quantities, using calculator or computer.
- Confer with supervisor to determine project details such as plan preparation, acceptance testing, and evaluation of field conditions.
- Prepare reports and document project activities and data.
- Read and review project blueprints and structural specifications to determine dimensions of structure or system and material requirements.
- Draft detailed dimensional drawings and design layouts for projects to ensure conformance to specifications.
- Analyze proposed site factors and design maps, graphs, tracings, and diagrams to illustrate findings.
- Report maintenance problems occurring at project site to supervisor and negotiate changes to resolve system conflicts.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 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 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematical Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.8 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 | 5.75 |
| I — Investigative | 5.37 |
| C — Conventional | 5.27 |
| A — Artistic | 2.88 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.00 |
| S — Social | 1.55 |

### 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 | 91.8 |
| ISTP | 84.6 |
| INTJ | 84.1 |
| ISFJ | 66.9 |
| ESTJ | 64.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Architectural and Civil Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-civil-drafter) — median $66,150
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Construction Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-manager) — median $114,990
- [Construction and Building Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-and-building-inspector) — median $74,690
- [Electrical and Electronics Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-drafter) — median $76,870
- [Mechanical Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-drafter) — median $71,550
- [Transportation Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-engineer) — median $100,840
- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Environmental Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $59,920
- [Industrial Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $66,120

## 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/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician