Top Engineering Jobs

When looking at aerospace engineering, there are two major branches of the discipline to consider. The first is that in which aerospace engineers perform work for aircraft. These aerospace engineer jobs are involved in the science, design and construction of aircraft.

The second branch to consider is astronautical engineering, in which engineers are primarily working with spacecraft. These jobs are involved in the study, design and construction of spacecraft. Spacecraft can include everything from spaceships designed to support human life to satellites. The science of space travel and the design and construction of long range, unmanned exploratory spacecraft are also included in potential duties of this job role.

Aerospace engineers are required to have a strong understanding of numerous engineering disciplines. They must be skilled and knowledgeable in manufacturing, materials science, structural integrity analysis, aerodynamics, avionics, and propulsion. They must be good problem solvers, excellent mathematicians, strong communicators, and quick thinkers. They must work well independently and as part of a larger team and be willing to accept input from other experts in their field.

They will additionally be required to be capable of designing, testing, and building aircraft and spacecraft. They may oversee the manufacture of their designs or be intimately involved in the development of the design. Either way, the aerospace engineer is ultimately responsible for the integrity of the finished air or space craft, making the job one with a great deal of responsibility on its shoulder’s.

If you want to take on this job role then you will need an advanced degree. The minimum acceptable educational achievement is a bachelor’s degree, though most positions actually require a master’s or a PhD instead. Even those individuals who obtain a bachelor’s and then enter the workforce often return to school at a later date to complete an advanced degree. Read the full story

The engineering professions have been hard hit by the recession; especially Civil Engineering. You have probably noticed that there are not many job postings for engineers. In small pockets of the country are starting to seek out your expertise.

Researching some of the top engineering job posting sites on the internet, one can quickly see that the number of job postings has been drastically reduced compared to several years ago. Many States like my home State of Nevada job postings for engineers are few, while other States like California and Texas there are quite a few more.

Which of the 5 geographical areas in the United would fair better; Northwest, Mid-west, Northeast, Southeast, or Southwest? In order to answer this question, we decided to look at several of the main online job listing sites, and categorize the listings as follows: the number of civil engineering job postings, number jobs in geographical areas, and the states with the highest number of job postings.

After reviewing several sites a pattern emerged that was a little surprising. The initial results showed that the number of listings were extremely low. States with zero or extremely low number of listings were Rhode Island and South Dakota. Several States would only show one or two listings like Delaware, Kentucky, North Dakota, and West Virginia.

The southwest region in every website we visited had the highest number of postings. In each analysis California’s and Texas’s high job postings carried the southwest region to the lead.

1. Southwest Region – All of the websites surveyed showed that this region had the highest number of job postings for Civil Engineers. The job postings in California and Texas were about seventy percent of the region’s total number.
2. Southeast Region – The number of job postings were not far behind the southwest region. The number of job postings seemed to be a little more spread across the States in this region. Florida, Virginia, and Washington DC area typically had the highest number of postings.
3. Northeast Region – The states of New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania typical had the highest number of posts in this region, but Rhode Island and Vermont were usually the lowest.
4. Mid West Region – This region consist of the most States, but had very low job listing numbers for each State. The exceptions were Illinois and Ohio with about 50% of the postings combined.
5. Northwest Region – This region showed the lowest number of job postings on all of the websites we reviewed. With about 70% of the available positions the State of Washington had the highest number of postings in this region.

It should be noted that the States with the highest listing were also States with large populations. In that sense the higher listings is right in line with what would be expected. If the numbers were adjusted with taking into account the State’s population a different result have occurred. At any rate the overall numbers were very low. The site with the largest number of listings for Civil Engineers only had 1,147 posts.

Another result that we like to analyze is how many Civil Engineers are unemployed right now. The same type of analysis can be preformed by looking at how many engineers are unemployed in each state, and region. Perhaps in a future article we can address this matter. Read the full story