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Civil Engineers

Architecture and Engineering · SOC 17-2051

0.8% AI Exposure — Medium
$100,840
Median Annual Salary
Average
O*NET Outlook
28,300
Proj. Annual Openings
367,840
Employment (OEWS 2025)
+2.8%/yr
Empl. growth (2019–2025)
99/100
AI Resiliency Score

AI exposure from the Anthropic Economic Index (2025); salary from BLS; skills from O*NET. See /sources.

Decision card

Career Evidence Passport

SOC 17-2051 evidence across exposure, wages, projections, postings, certified LCAs, skills, and transitions.

Proxy / seed data labeledDescriptive-only
SOC exposure
0.8%
Medium · Anthropic AEI
Automation friction
50/100
Moderate friction; broad SOC seed ORS job-requirements coverage.
Wages
$100,840
H-1B offered wage $90,000; LCAs are filings.
Projected openings
28,300
BLS EP 2024–2034; employment change +5.0%.
Observed/proxy demand
5,817
FY2025 certified LCAs; 45,345 postings in 2025.

Skill evidence

Active ListeningReading ComprehensionWritingSpeakingCritical Thinking
  • H-1B values are certified Labor Condition Applications, not visa approvals.
  • Job postings are seed-static / seed-derived; treat as provider-ready proxy coverage until observed provider data is wired in.
  • Transition matches are directional skill-overlap context, not placement guarantees.
  • This release is a FutureGrid broad-SOC seed derived from public BLS ORS requirement concepts and categories, not direct occupation-level ORS survey estimates. It describes job requirements, not worker ability, AI capability, or displacement probability. Automation friction is a FutureGrid derived score and should be read alongside exposure, demand, wage, and projection signals.

Best transitions from here

Explore all pathways

Lower AI-exposure roles that reuse your skills, ranked by a transition score (skills that transfer, safety gain, pay and retraining effort).

AI Exposure Analysis

AI Exposure0.8%
AI Resiliency99/100
Exposure BandMedium
Sector Avg. Exposure4.5%

Across AI measures

Multiple exposure lenses for this occupation.

47.7%
Consensus
Actual adoption · Anthropic0.8%
AI capability · OpenAI48.2%
AI ability · AIOE94.2%
Automation baseline (2013) · Frey & Osborne1.9%

AI could do ~48.2% of this role but only ~0.8% is currently done with AI — a large capability-vs-adoption gap.

Top Skills

1.Active Listening
2.Reading Comprehension
3.Writing
4.Speaking
5.Critical Thinking

H-1B Visa Sponsorship Demand

View full H-1B trends →

Certified H-1B Labor Condition Applications naming this occupation, FY2016–FY2025. A descriptive high-skill labor-demand signal — employer filings, not visa approvals or individual outcomes. Note: one LCA can cover multiple worker positions.

39,373
Decade Total (Certified LCAs)
5,817
FY2025 Volume
1% of all H-1B filings in FY2025
$90,000
Median Offered Wage (Latest Year)
#22 of 776
Rank by Total Volume
H-1B filing volume, FY2016–FY2025

O*NET occupation profile

What this work involves

Perform engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems.

Common titles: City Engineer, Civil Engineer, County Engineer, Design Engineer, Engineer, Geotechnical Engineer

Representative Tasks

  • Direct engineering activities, ensuring compliance with environmental, safety, or other governmental regulations.
  • Manage and direct the construction, operations, or maintenance activities at project site.
  • Inspect project sites to monitor progress and ensure conformance to design specifications and safety or sanitation standards.
  • Compute load and grade requirements, water flow rates, or material stress factors to determine design specifications.
  • Plan and design transportation or hydraulic systems or structures, using computer-assisted design or drawing tools.

Detailed Work Activities

  • Coordinate safety or regulatory compliance activities.
  • Test characteristics of materials or structures.
  • Direct construction activities.
  • Inspect facilities or sites to determine if they meet specifications or standards.
  • Estimate technical or resource requirements for development or production projects.

Tools & Technologies

Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D · hotAutodesk Revit · hotBentley MicroStation · hotMicrosoft PowerPoint · hotC · hotDassault Systemes SolidWorks · hotESRI ArcGIS software · hotMicrosoft Visual Basic · hotProcore software · hotThe MathWorks MATLAB · hot

Employment Projections & AI Exposure

15
Occupations Shown
4.5%
Avg AI Exposure
2
Bright Outlook
Horizontal bar chart showing occupations with the highest projected annual openings. Each bar length represents annual projected openings. Color uses a gradient from violet (lower) to cyan (higher). Summary statistics are shown above the chart.

Employment & Wage Trend

BLS OEWS, 2019–2025


Occupation Employment & Wage TrendMulti-year BLS OEWS history for SOC 17-2051: 2019 — employment: 310,850, median wage: $87,060; 2020 — employment: 300,850, median wage: $88,570; 2021 — employment: 304,310, median wage: $88,050; 2022 — employment: 307,570, median wage: $89,940; 2023 — employment: 327,950, median wage: $95,890; 2025 — employment: 367,840, median wage: $100,840.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). See /sources.

Sector Comparison

MetricThis CareerSector Average
AI Exposure0.8%4.5%
OutlookAverage15% Bright
Median Salary$100,840N/A
AI Resiliency99/100N/A