---
title: "MWD Field Engineer"
description: "Operates measurement-while-drilling tools on a rig, sending real-time data on a well's direction and position to the surface."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/mwd-field-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# MWD Field Engineer

**Category:** Construction and Extraction · **SOC code:** 47-5012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 47-5012.00

Operates measurement-while-drilling tools on a rig, sending real-time data on a well's direction and position to the surface.

Also advertised as: MWD Operator; MWD Technician; Measurement While Drilling Engineer; MWD Hand; MWD Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $67,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $32.64/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,010 to $101,860, with the middle half between $53,810 and $81,360
- **Total US employment:** 12,600
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +0.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 69/100 — 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 12,600 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,010 |
| 25th | $53,810 |
| 50th (median) | $67,890 |
| 75th | $81,360 |
| 90th | $101,860 |
| Mean (average) | $72,130 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AK | $85,470 | $83,500 | 130 |
| NM | $82,780 | $89,771 | 580 |
| CO | $79,830 | $77,466 | 110 |
| NE | $79,140 | $87,833 | 40 |
| TX | $77,840 | $80,200 | 5,980 |
| ND | $71,280 | $80,127 | 230 |
| UT | $70,400 | $71,209 | Not published by BLS |
| AL | $67,400 | $75,881 | 40 |
| MS | $67,290 | $77,387 | 130 |
| NY | $67,000 | $62,082 | 50 |
| CA | $65,520 | $59,176 | 460 |
| OH | $63,600 | $68,554 | 290 |
| AZ | $62,920 | $62,497 | 30 |
| FL | $61,970 | $59,924 | 180 |
| PA | $61,780 | $63,317 | 390 |

11 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 26 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/mwd-field-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mwd-field-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 12,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 12,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 100 jobs, or +0.8%. Slower than average: 0.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,100 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:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 31.1% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 28.7% |
| Some College Courses | 22.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 9.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 8.9% |

## What the work involves

- Program and assemble MWD tools before each run
- Decode mud pulse or electromagnetic survey signals
- Deliver directional surveys to the directional driller
- Troubleshoot surface sensors and downhole tools
- Record gamma ray and other logging-while-drilling data
- Maintain tool inventory and job records
- Follow rig safety and lifting procedures

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 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.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mechanical — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — 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), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 4.39 |
| I — Investigative | 4.05 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.20 |
| S — Social | 1.16 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### 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 | 92.6 |
| ISTP | 82.6 |
| ESTJ | 74.1 |
| INTJ | 73.5 |
| ISFJ | 69.2 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Rotary Drill Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rotary-drill-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $67,890
- [Earth Driller, Except Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/earth-driller) — median $60,190
- [Helpers--Extraction Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-extraction-worker) — median $47,730
- [Service Unit Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/service-unit-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $58,160
- [Oil and Gas Roustabout](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oil-and-gas-roustabout) — median $46,960
- [Wellhead Pumper](https://nuecareer.com/careers/wellhead-pumper) — median $69,960
- [Derrick Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/derrick-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $58,620
- [Drilling and Boring Machine Tool Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/drilling-and-boring-machine-tool-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $49,080
- [Continuous Mining Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/continuous-mining-machine-operator) — median $61,810
- [Petroleum Pump System Operator, Refinery Operator, and Gauger](https://nuecareer.com/careers/petroleum-pump-system-operator-refinery-operator-and-gauger) — median $96,710

## 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/mwd-field-engineer