---
title: "Mechanical Engineer"
description: "Perform engineering duties in planning and designing tools, engines, machines, and other mechanically functioning equipment. Oversee installation…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Mechanical Engineer

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

Perform engineering duties in planning and designing tools, engines, machines, and other mechanically functioning equipment. Oversee installation, operation, maintenance, and repair of equipment such as centralized heat, gas, water, and steam systems.

Also advertised as: Application Engineer; Design Engineer; Equipment Engineer; Mechanical Design Engineer; Mechanical Designer; Mechanical Engineer; Product Development Engineer; Product 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:** +9.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 18,100 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/mechanical-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mechanical-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 293,100 in the 2024–2034 base year to 319,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 26,500 jobs, or +9.1%. Much faster than average: 9.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 18,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## 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 | 1.3% |
| Master's Degree | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Read and interpret blueprints, technical drawings, schematics, or computer-generated reports.
- Research, design, evaluate, install, operate, or maintain mechanical products, equipment, systems or processes to meet requirements.
- Specify system components or direct modification of products to ensure conformance with engineering design, performance specifications, or environmental regulations.
- Research and analyze customer design proposals, specifications, manuals, or other data to evaluate the feasibility, cost, or maintenance requirements of designs or applications.
- Confer with engineers or other personnel to implement operating procedures, resolve system malfunctions, or provide technical information.
- Provide feedback to design engineers on customer problems or needs.
- Develop or test models of alternate designs or processing methods to assess feasibility, sustainability, operating condition effects, potential new applications, or necessity of modification.
- Recommend design modifications to eliminate machine or system malfunctions.

## 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 | 5.12 |
| C — Conventional | 4.83 |
| 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 | 90.8 |
| ISTP | 85.0 |
| INTJ | 81.2 |
| ESTJ | 66.4 |
| ISFJ | 65.5 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [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
- [Fuel Cell Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fuel-cell-engineer) — median $104,110

### Mechanical Engineer compared with

- [Civil Engineer vs Mechanical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineer-vs-mechanical-engineer) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 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

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mechanical-engineer