EXPOSED
Roughly half this job is screen work — CAD drafting of plan-and-profile sheets, quantity takeoffs, cost estimates, drainage and grading calculations, permit paperwork — and generative CAD plus parametric design tools are eating it quickly. The other half is field work that AI cannot touch: concrete cylinder breaks and slump tests, soil compaction density checks, construction inspection walks, surveying support. The modal technician sits in both worlds, so the office half shrinks while the field half holds, and the PE — not the technician — carries the stamp and the liability.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $53,410 → $64,950 -2.7% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
+2.1% 64,900 → 66,200 on the projections basis
Exposed, but growing
AI can already do a lot of these tasks, and the BLS still expects +2.1% more of these jobs by 2034. Demand for the output is growing faster than the work is being automated away — the mechanism BLS gives for software developers, and the combination people most often misread as an error.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~5,500 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
Civil DesignerParking AnalystField TechnicianDesign TechnicianEngineer AssistantHighway TechnicianDrafting TechnicianEngineer TechnicianCivil Engineer HelperCivil Engineer's AideEngineering AssistantStructural TechnicianEngineering TechnicianEngineering TechnologistCivil Engineering AssistantSprinkler Design TechnicianCivil Engineering TechnicianConstruction Field AssistantBridge Construction InspectorCivil Technician (Civil Tech)Civil Engineering TechnologistHighway Construction InspectorHighway Engineering TechnicianConcrete Engineering Technician
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier The 9 reflects a genuine split: cross-section sheets, earthwork volume takeoffs, and Excel-based bid tabs can be produced by parametric templates in Civil 3D or OpenRoads with a fraction of the keystrokes, but nobody has automated running a nuclear density gauge on a lift of subgrade, pulling cylinders at a pour, or writing the daily inspection report on why the contractor's forms were out of tolerance.
Some physical or field component At 12 the field half is real but staged — you're in traffic, in trenches, on active construction sites in weather, hauling a level rod or a gauge, yet the work is scheduled, the site is a known location with a plan set, and much of the week is back at the desk reducing what you collected rather than improvising in an uncontrolled space.
No licence, no signature requirement A 4 rather than a zero recognizes that ACI concrete field testing, nuclear gauge, and NICET certifications are frequently contract requirements and can be revoked — but no state licenses this title, your test reports and drawings carry a PE's seal, and if the retaining wall fails the board proceeding is against the engineer who stamped it.
Meaningful discretion The 7 is the discretion inside a spec book: you decide whether a compaction result is close enough to call for a retest, whether to flag a deviation on the daily report or handle it verbally with the foreman, and how to interpolate a grade the plans left ambiguous — but ASTM/AASHTO methods and the project specs dictate the procedure, and any real change order or design deviation goes up to the engineer.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (9/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (4/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (5/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (7/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 16 of this occupation's 37 points (43%).
Embodiment (12/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
Civil Engineers EXPOSED
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 52/100, still EXPOSED.
If state DOT and municipal specs continue requiring certified in-person materials testing and construction inspection — e.g. ACI Concrete Field Testing Grade I, NICET Level II/III, or state DOT technician certification programs (TxDOT, Caltrans) — for acceptance of concrete, asphalt and compaction on federally funded projects, the field tier becomes the whole job as office work is automated. Watch for FHWA 23 CFR 637 materials-sampling-and-testing rules being loosened to allow remote/sensor-based acceptance; if they hold, embodiment holds high.
Genuine two-tier job: if generative CAD absorbs plan-and-profile sheet production and quantity takeoffs, the residual role concentrates in field verification, discrepancy resolution between as-built conditions and model, test-failure diagnosis, and constructability review — tasks tied to physical evidence and site-specific ambiguity. Task_resistance measured on the remaining mix rises even as headcount falls.
If state boards or owner agencies require a named, certified technician of record to sign materials test reports and daily inspection reports with personal certification (as ACI/AASHTO accreditation and some DOT specs already imply), and if courts treat falsified compaction or cylinder-break records as the technician's personal exposure — the sworn-report signature becomes a shield. Watch state DOT specs adding 'technician of record' signature blocks and AASHTO re:source accreditation requirements naming individuals.
If special-inspection regimes under IBC Chapter 17 expand and the on-site technician's stop-work / reject-the-pour call is documented as theirs rather than escalated, the role owns a consequential call under ambiguity. Watch for jurisdictions (e.g. California DSA, NYC DOB special inspector rules) tightening individual special-inspector accountability after structural failures.
The limit. No plausible route to a meaningful trust premium: the buyer is a contractor or public agency purchasing a compliance artifact at lowest qualified cost, not a human relationship. Also note the office half shrinking is a headcount story, not a score story — the surviving field-heavy role can score higher while far fewer people hold it.
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 2,250 | $81,360 +25% |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 1,840 | $57,220 -12% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 1,820 | $58,780 -9% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,670 | $83,990 +29% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 1,330 | $63,650 -2% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 1,270 | $97,510 +50% |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 1,260 | $59,050 -9% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 1,250 | $73,790 +14% |
| Napa, CA | 40 | $102,390 +58% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 420 | $98,020 +51% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 1,270 | $97,510 +50% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 37. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.