---
title: "Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer"
description: "Prevents accidental nuclear chain reactions at facilities that handle uranium and plutonium, such as fuel plants, labs and waste sites."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-criticality-safety-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineer

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-2161 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-2161.00

Prevents accidental nuclear chain reactions at facilities that handle uranium and plutonium, such as fuel plants, labs and waste sites.

Also advertised as: Criticality Safety Engineer; Criticality Safety Analyst; NCS Engineer; Senior Criticality Safety Engineer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $133,970 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $64.41/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $92,960 to $196,290, with the middle half between $108,690 and $163,630
- **Total US employment:** 15,280
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +0.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 25/100 — 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 15,280 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $92,960 |
| 25th | $108,690 |
| 50th (median) | $133,970 |
| 75th | $163,630 |
| 90th | $196,290 |
| Mean (average) | $140,420 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $195,190 | $177,605 | 230 |
| CA | $172,400 | $155,708 | 1,070 |
| NM | $164,300 | $178,176 | 500 |
| MD | $157,960 | $150,497 | 180 |
| MA | $145,760 | $137,825 | 210 |
| NY | $141,200 | $130,836 | 150 |
| FL | $135,400 | $130,930 | 120 |
| IL | $134,510 | $134,567 | 1,040 |
| ID | $133,970 | $140,292 | Not published by BLS |
| PA | $133,250 | $136,566 | 340 |
| AL | $132,570 | $149,252 | 290 |
| GA | $132,440 | $137,539 | 200 |
| NC | $131,850 | $139,781 | 460 |
| MI | $129,940 | $135,049 | 330 |
| WA | $129,480 | $120,995 | 1,380 |

4 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 19 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-criticality-safety-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nuclear-criticality-safety-engineer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 16,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 16,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 100 jobs, or +0.4%. Slower than average: 0.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 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 | 81.0% |
| Master's Degree | 19.1% |

## What the work involves

- Write criticality safety evaluations for fissile material operations
- Run Monte Carlo neutron transport calculations
- Set mass, geometry and spacing limits for operations
- Walk down processes to verify controls are in place
- Train operators on criticality safety controls
- Review facility changes for criticality risk
- Investigate criticality safety infractions

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Science — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 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.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Physics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 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
- 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 Investigative (I), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.44 |
| R — Realistic | 5.02 |
| C — Conventional | 4.89 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.53 |
| A — Artistic | 2.05 |
| S — Social | 1.89 |

### 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 | 88.5 |
| INTJ | 85.3 |
| ISTP | 83.4 |
| INTP | 67.6 |
| ESTJ | 63.5 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, INTJ. 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.

- [Nuclear Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-engineer) — median $133,970
- [Nuclear Power Reactor Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-power-reactor-operator) — median $122,890
- [Nuclear Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-technician) — median $110,240
- [Nuclear Monitoring Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-monitoring-technician) — median $110,240
- [Chemical Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemical-engineer) — median $125,040
- [Geothermal Production Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geothermal-production-manager) — median $126,060
- [Environmental Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-engineer) — median $107,110
- [Biofuels/Biodiesel Technology and Product Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biofuels-biodiesel-technology-and-product-development-manager) — median $171,270
- [Environmental Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $59,920
- [Biomass Power Plant Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biomass-power-plant-manager) — median $126,060

## 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/nuclear-criticality-safety-engineer