---
title: "Forensic Engineer"
description: "Investigates failures of machines, products, structures and vehicles to find the cause, usually for insurers, attorneys and courts."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/forensic-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Forensic Engineer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2141 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2141.00

Investigates failures of machines, products, structures and vehicles to find the cause, usually for insurers, attorneys and courts.

Also advertised as: Forensic Mechanical Engineer; Failure Analysis Engineer; Forensic Engineering Consultant; Investigative Engineer; Origin and Cause Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $104,110 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $50.05/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $73,990 to $164,340, with the middle half between $84,130 and $132,590
- **Total US employment:** 296,810
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +11.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 17,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 30/100 — 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 296,810 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $73,990 |
| 25th | $84,130 |
| 50th (median) | $104,110 |
| 75th | $132,590 |
| 90th | $164,340 |
| Mean (average) | $113,610 |

### 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 | $157,710 | $171,030 | 2,710 |
| DC | $133,300 | $121,291 | 510 |
| CA | $130,900 | $118,226 | 30,530 |
| DE | $125,130 | $125,371 | 610 |
| CO | $124,430 | $120,745 | 7,190 |
| AK | $124,340 | $121,474 | 380 |
| MD | $122,870 | $117,065 | 6,550 |
| LA | $119,540 | $135,522 | 1,890 |
| MA | $119,300 | $112,806 | 7,680 |
| WY | $117,750 | $127,035 | 230 |
| RI | $116,230 | $113,639 | 1,560 |
| TX | $112,410 | $115,819 | 22,080 |
| NJ | $112,300 | $103,212 | 4,180 |
| WA | $110,430 | $103,193 | 8,240 |
| VT | $107,330 | $109,567 | 530 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 298,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 332,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 33,500 jobs, or +11.2%. Much faster than average: 11.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 17,800 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 | 52.3% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 28.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 8.9% |
| Some College Courses | 8.3% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 1.3% |
| Master's Degree | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Inspect failed equipment, products, vehicles and structures
- Document and preserve physical evidence at incident sites
- Run material, mechanical and electrical tests on failed parts
- Perform engineering calculations and failure analysis
- Review design documents, standards and maintenance records
- Write expert reports explaining the cause of failure
- Testify in depositions and trials as an expert witness

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

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

### Knowledge areas

- Design — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 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 | 6.39 |
| I — Investigative | 5.50 |
| C — Conventional | 4.94 |
| A — Artistic | 2.02 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.97 |
| S — Social | 1.22 |

### 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 | 90.7 |
| ISTP | 85.1 |
| INTJ | 82.3 |
| ESTJ | 65.7 |
| ISFJ | 64.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer) — median $104,110
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Electrical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-engineer) — median $120,630
- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Mechatronics Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechatronics-engineer) — median $122,930
- [Industrial Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineer) — median $102,440
- [Electronics Engineer, Except Computer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electronics-engineer) — median $130,220
- [Calibration Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/calibration-technologist-and-technician) — median $67,820
- [Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician) — median $82,890
- [Automotive Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/automotive-engineer) — median $104,110

## 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/forensic-engineer