---
title: "What can you do with a mechanical engineering degree?"
description: "15 careers mechanical engineering graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/mechanical-engineering"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with a mechanical engineering degree?

**What the degree involves:** Statics, dynamics, thermodynamics, materials, and design projects with deadlines.

Mechanical engineering is the broadest engineering degree, and the destination list shows it: graduates end up designing products, running factories, testing and validating, and eventually managing the engineers who do. A sizeable minority never work as an engineer at all and use the analytical training somewhere else entirely.

15 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 0 of 15 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 14 of 15 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer) | $104,110 | +9.1% | 18,100 | Bachelor's |
| 2 | [Industrial Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineer) | $102,440 | +11.0% | 25,200 | Bachelor's |
| 3 | [Manufacturing Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/manufacturing-engineer) | $102,440 | +11.0% | 25,200 | Bachelor's |
| 4 | Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician | $74,510 | 0.0% | 3,200 | Associate's |
| 5 | [Automotive Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/automotive-engineer) | $104,110 | +9.1% | 18,100 | Bachelor's |
| 6 | Aerospace Engineer | $134,960 | +6.1% | 4,500 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | Materials Engineer | $112,860 | +5.7% | 1,500 | Bachelor's |
| 8 | [Validation Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/validation-engineer) | $102,440 | +11.0% | 25,200 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | Energy Engineer, Except Wind and Solar | $122,930 | +2.1% | 9,300 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | Mechatronics Engineer | $122,930 | +2.1% | 9,300 | Bachelor's |
| 11 | [Quality Control Systems Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/quality-control-systems-manager) | $126,060 | +1.9% | 17,100 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | [Industrial Production Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-production-manager) | $126,060 | +1.9% | 17,100 | Bachelor's |
| 13 | [Project Management Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/project-management-specialist) | $102,320 | +5.6% | 78,200 | Bachelor's |
| 14 | [Sales Representative, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Product](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing-technical-and-scientific-product) | $104,920 | +1.9% | 27,200 | Bachelor's |
| 15 | [Architectural and Engineering Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-engineering-manager) | $171,270 | +3.8% | 14,500 | Bachelor's |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

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This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 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