Civil Engineers
Under the title Civil Engineers, workers 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. O*NET rates it as considerable preparation, which usually means a bachelor’s degree plus a period of work experience. It leans on active listening, speaking, and reading comprehension. The job can ask you to direct engineering activities, ensuring compliance with environmental, safety, or other governmental regulations. On the six-type interest model it reads RIC, meaning hands-on work with tools, machines or the physical world comes first, followed by research, analysis and working through hard problems. People who want hands-on work with tools, machines or the physical world usually fit better here than those who need helping, teaching or caring for people.
What they do
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.
Main 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.
- Provide technical advice to industrial or managerial personnel regarding design, construction, program modifications, or structural repairs.
Skills
- Active Listening
- Speaking
- Reading Comprehension
- Mathematics
- Critical Thinking
- Complex Problem Solving
Who this career fits
May suit you if
- You like ending the day with a physical result you can point to.
- You enjoy working out why something happens, not just what happened.
- You are ready to spend around four years on a degree, then build experience.
- You are comfortable relying on active listening and speaking.
May not suit you if
- You would rather stay away from physical, hands-on tasks.
- You want helping people to be at the center of your work. Social rates 1.7 out of 7 here.
- You want to avoid a four-year degree or its equivalent.
Interest profile
O*NET rates each occupation from 1 to 7 on six interest types. The code RIC takes the three highest, and Realistic comes first here.
Preparation
Considerable preparation. Most jobs here ask for a bachelor’s degree, and employers usually expect a few years of related experience as well.
Most-reported requirement in the O*NET survey: Bachelor's Degree. This reflects what workers reported most often and is not a legal minimum. Licensing rules can differ by state or industry, so confirm what applies where you plan to work.
Also called
- City Engineer
- Civil Engineer
- County Engineer
- Design Engineer
- Engineer
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This page 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. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.