{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/civil-engineers/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Civil Engineers",
    "soc_code": "17-2051",
    "category": "Engineering",
    "us_employment": 367840,
    "median_annual_wage": 100840
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 63,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 11,
    "embodiment": 9,
    "liability_shield": 17,
    "trust_premium": 10,
    "judgment_accountability": 16
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Rebar schedules, culvert sizing to HDS-5, earthwork volumes off a TIN surface, and stormwater routing in HydroCAD are already scripted or near-scripted, but constructability review, utility conflict resolution with three franchise owners, and negotiating a variance with a municipal reviewer who wants the detention pond moved still eat weeks — that split is what puts it at 11 and not 6 or 15.",
    "embodiment": "Site visits, punch lists, pre-pour rebar inspection, and witnessing proof rolls or Proctor tests put boots in mud several times a month, but the design work happens in Civil 3D at a desk and the destructive testing is delegated to techs and CMT labs, so it lands at 9 rather than the 15+ of a field inspector.",
    "liability_shield": "State engineering practice acts make sealing plans without a PE a misdemeanor in most jurisdictions, the stamp is personal rather than corporate, and the engineer of record remains named in construction-defect and drainage litigation for years after CO — 17 rather than 20 only because a large share of EIT-level production staff work under someone else's seal.",
    "trust_premium": "Public-agency work is won on QBS shortlists and prior-project performance where the PM's relationship with the city engineer genuinely decides the award, but the deliverable itself is a signed plan set reviewed against IDOT or local design standards, and clients swap firms between projects, so the relationship supplements the product rather than being it.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Choosing a bearing capacity when borings disagree, deciding whether a 30-year-old bridge stays open after a fracture-critical inspection, or accepting a contractor's value-engineering substitution are calls with no procedure behind them and injury or drowning on the wrong side — 16 rather than 19 because design codes (ACI 318, AASHTO LRFD, local drainage manuals) bound most decisions to a defensible range."
  },
  "rationale": "A large share of the median civil engineer's week is drawing production, load and hydraulic calculations, spec editing, permit packages, quantity takeoffs and report writing — all of which parametric tools plus AI are compressing fast. What does not compress is the PE stamp: a licensed human is legally required to seal structural, drainage and site designs and carries personal liability for public safety, and that person also walks the site, argues with the reviewing agency, and decides what to do when the geotech report contradicts the plan. Expect fewer hours billed per project and a widening gap between production-tier engineers and stamping/PM-tier engineers.",
  "outlook": "Civil engineering employment holds up on infrastructure spending, but the production tier shrinks as AI and parametric design cut drafting and calc hours, concentrating value in stamped sign-off, construction-phase judgment and agency negotiation.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "NCEES and state boards adopting an explicit rule that a PE may not seal work whose calculations were generated by an automated tool unless the engineer independently reproduces and documents the governing checks — plus removal of the 'industrial exemption' in states that still allow unsealed in-house engineering. NCEES model law revisions and state board disciplinary cases over AI-assisted sealing are the thing to watch; also professional liability carriers (e.g. Victor/Berkley A&E policies) adding AI-use exclusions that force named-engineer attestation.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If sheet production, quantity takeoffs, spec editing and hydraulic runs are absorbed by parametric/AI tooling, the residual median job becomes constructability review, agency negotiation, RFI/change-order adjudication and reconciling contradictory geotech, survey and utility data — work that has no clean ground truth. Watch whether firms cut EIT/CAD headcount while PE headcount holds, i.e. the ratio of unlicensed to licensed staff in ENR Top 500 firms.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Post-failure regime change: a high-casualty infrastructure failure attributed partly to unverified automated design (the Surfside and FIU bridge inquiries are the template) leading to mandatory independent peer review thresholds — e.g. Florida's threshold buildings review, or a federal requirement for third-party structural review on FHWA-funded bridges. This makes a named engineer the accountable decider on more projects, not fewer.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Construction-phase engineering-of-record duties expanded by code — special inspection and observation requirements under IBC Ch.17 tightened so the sealing engineer, not a technician, must personally observe critical placements (deep foundations, post-tensioning, shoring). Some state DOTs already require EOR site presence at specified hold points.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no plausible route: the buyers are public agencies and developers procuring on qualifications-based selection and fee, and none of them pays extra for human-drawn plans as such — they pay for a stamp, which is already counted under liability shield. Note also that the liability shield protects the licensed stamping tier only; the production-tier engineer who is not yet a PE gets no benefit from any of these levers, and the register's 63 is an average across a population that is splitting."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 298910,
        "wage": 84770
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 306030,
        "wage": 86640
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 310850,
        "wage": 87060
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 300850,
        "wage": 88570
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 304310,
        "wage": 88050
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 307570,
        "wage": 89940
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 327950,
        "wage": 95890
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 355410,
        "wage": 99590
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 367840,
        "wage": 100840
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 23.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}