There’s no doubt that engineering is a massive industry, with rough estimates putting the total industry workforce at roughly 1.6 million engineers.

Such a big industry obviously has various sub-sectors, creating plenty of opportunities for you to specialize and develop your skills in new and exciting ways.

Listed below are a number of the different engineering careers that you can choose from if you decide to work in this industry.

The first section out lines the three biggest sectors of the engineering industry, while the second section discusses the sectors that are projected to experience the most growth over the next decade.

Largest Engineering Careers By Employment

1 – Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is both the second oldest type of engineering, and the discipline that employs the greatest number of engineers with over 280,000 people being employed as civil engineers in the U.S alone.

Civil engineering careers are all about construction. Any time there is something being built, there’s a civil engineer involved.

This includes anything from buildings and road networks, to dams and bridges.

2 – Mechanical Engineering

Following closely behind civil engineering in terms of employment numbers is mechanical engineering which has a workforce of around 240,000 people in the U.S.

As the name might suggest, a mechanical engineering career will see you focusing your skills and expertise on anything mechanical.

So you’ll be creating new products and systems, working out how to improve on mechanical tools, products and systems as well as trying to identify what has caused mechanical failure to occur in anything from a consumer product to an automobile.

3 – Industrial Engineering

In an ever more complex society there’s always a need to work on efficiency, and this is the job of the industrial engineer.

A career in industrial engineering can see you using your skills across a broad range of industries in order to improve the efficiency of extremely complex systems or processes and the various elements involved such as people, machinery and equipment, money and materials.

Fastest Growing Careers In Engineering

If you’re thinking of entering one of the smaller fields of engineering, than you really need to know that the job prospects are strong for the foreseeable future.

So here are the engineering careers with the highest projected employment growth levels.

1 – Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineering is all about creating equipment and tools that can improve the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions, illnesses and injuries.

Increasing population combined with an ever aging population make this an engineering career that is set to almost double in number of people employed by 2020 from current numbers.

2 – Environmental Engineering

When you look at the intense focus within society on making the world greener, it’s no real surprise to learn that environmental engineering is set to explode in the next decade.

The projected growth in jobs is over 30%, so if you’re a bit of an environmentalist at heart, this could certainly be the engineering career that holds the most interest for you.

3 – Civil Engineering

Not only is civil engineering the largest sector it’s also one of the fastest growing.

Whenever there’s population growth, and population shift there’s always going to be an increased need for civil engineers to make sure that the right infrastructure is in place to cope with increased demands.

Engineering Careers – Salary Expectations

As mentioned above, the employment growth numbers for many (in fact almost all) sectors of engineering are set to grow over the next decade.

And if you’re interested in pursuing a career in engineering than you can expect to earn well above the average wage for your efforts.

Generally speaking, starting salaries are around the $50,000 mark and rise steadily from there.

The more specialized your skills and the more experience you have, the greater your earnings potential. You can definitely work your way to a six-figure salary in a number of different engineering careers.