---
title: "Cost Segregation Specialist"
description: "Breaks a building's cost into components that can be depreciated faster for tax purposes, using engineering estimates backed by site inspections and plans."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cost-segregation-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Cost Segregation Specialist

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1051.00

Breaks a building's cost into components that can be depreciated faster for tax purposes, using engineering estimates backed by site inspections and plans.

Also advertised as: Cost Segregation Analyst; Cost Segregation Engineer; Cost Segregation Consultant; Fixed Asset Tax Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $78,740 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $37.86/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,530 to $130,820, with the middle half between $61,150 and $101,850
- **Total US employment:** 224,220
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 17,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 12/100 — 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 224,220 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,530 |
| 25th | $61,150 |
| 50th (median) | $78,740 |
| 75th | $101,850 |
| 90th | $130,820 |
| Mean (average) | $85,390 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $100,840 | $95,351 | 4,520 |
| AK | $97,020 | $94,784 | 220 |
| WY | $90,790 | $97,949 | 440 |
| CO | $86,940 | $84,365 | 6,100 |
| WA | $86,070 | $80,429 | 7,470 |
| CA | $85,460 | $77,186 | 26,020 |
| IL | $82,750 | $82,785 | 5,990 |
| DC | $82,730 | $75,277 | 270 |
| NV | $82,200 | $82,217 | 2,240 |
| RI | $81,990 | $80,162 | 590 |
| VT | $81,390 | $83,087 | 320 |
| MD | $81,190 | $77,354 | 4,580 |
| CT | $81,030 | $78,207 | 2,350 |
| MN | $80,810 | $81,940 | 4,310 |
| NJ | $80,570 | $74,050 | 5,240 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cost-segregation-specialist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cost-segregation-specialist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 226,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 219,500 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 6,900 jobs, or -3.1%. Declining: -3.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 17,600 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:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### 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 | 81.8% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 9.1% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 4.6% |
| Master's Degree | 4.6% |

## What the work involves

- Review building plans, construction invoices and closing documents
- Inspect and photograph properties to document building components
- Estimate the cost of components using construction cost data
- Classify assets into IRS depreciation categories
- Write cost segregation reports that support tax positions
- Explain study results to clients and their accountants
- Respond to IRS questions during audits of completed studies

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 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.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Financial Resources — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.2 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
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematical Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Number Facility — 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 Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.44 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.65 |
| I — Investigative | 4.16 |
| R — Realistic | 3.68 |
| S — Social | 1.66 |
| A — Artistic | 1.12 |

### 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 | 89.0 |
| ESTJ | 86.1 |
| ISFJ | 71.1 |
| INTJ | 67.2 |
| ENTJ | 64.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ. 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.

- [Cost Estimator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cost-estimator) — median $78,740
- [Logistics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/logistics-engineer) — median $82,320
- [Civil Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $64,950
- [Construction Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-manager) — median $114,990
- [Industrial Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineer) — median $102,440
- [Architectural and Engineering Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-engineering-manager) — median $171,270
- [Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/production-planning-and-expediting-clerk) — median $59,650
- [Architectural and Civil Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-civil-drafter) — median $66,150
- [Civil Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineer) — median $100,840
- [Project Management Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/project-management-specialist) — median $102,320

## 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/cost-segregation-specialist