---
title: "Nuclear Engineer"
description: "Conduct research on nuclear engineering projects or apply principles and theory of nuclear science to problems concerned with release, control, and use…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-engineer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Nuclear Engineer

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

Conduct research on nuclear engineering projects or apply principles and theory of nuclear science to problems concerned with release, control, and use of nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal.

Also advertised as: Engineer; Nuclear Design Engineer; Nuclear Engineer; Nuclear Licensing Engineer; Nuclear Process Engineer; Nuclear Reactor Engineer; Nuclear Safety Engineer; Nuclear Steam Supply System Engineer (NSSS 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-engineer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nuclear-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

- Monitor nuclear facility operations to identify any design, construction, or operation practices that violate safety regulations and laws or could jeopardize safe operations.
- Prepare technical reports of findings or recommendations, based on synthesized analyses of test results.
- Prepare environmental impact statements, reports, or presentations for regulatory or other agencies.
- Keep abreast of developments and changes in the nuclear field by reading technical journals or by independent study and research.
- Develop or contribute to the development of plans to remediate or restore environments affected by nuclear radiation, such as waste disposal sites.
- Write operational instructions to be used in nuclear plant operation or nuclear fuel or waste handling and disposal.
- Recommend preventive measures to be taken in the handling of nuclear technology, based on data obtained from operations monitoring or from evaluation of test results.
- Conduct environmental studies on topics such as nuclear power generation, nuclear waste disposal, or nuclear weapon deployment.

## 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 | 4.92 |
| C — Conventional | 4.48 |
| 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 | 86.8 |
| INTJ | 85.8 |
| ISTP | 83.7 |
| INTP | 69.8 |
| ESTJ | 61.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, INTJ, ISTP. 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 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
- [Fuel Cell Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fuel-cell-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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 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 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-engineer