How To Become A Crane Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a crane engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a crane engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $31.23 an hour? That's $64,963 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 22,000 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreCrane EngineerUS Average

Salary

5.1

Avg. Salary $64,963

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.9

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 2.01%

Asian 0.90%

Black or African American 5.78%

Hispanic or Latino 12.74%

Unknown 4.35%

White 74.21%

Gender

female 0.00%

male 100.00%

Age - 46

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 46

Stress level

6.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a crane engineer

Explore crane engineer education requirements

Most common crane engineer degrees

Bachelor's

63.6 %

Associate

27.3 %

High School Diploma

9.1 %

Start to develop specific crane engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Cranes	72.61%
HMI	10.96%
PLC	8.85%
Electrical Systems	7.59%

Complete relevant crane engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New crane engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a crane engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real crane engineer resumes.

Research crane engineer duties and responsibilities

Implement computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) for scheduling and execution of preventative and predictive maintenance to improve equipment reliability.
Perform general maintenance to guestrooms and public areas while monitoring and maintaining cleanliness, sanitation and organization of assign work areas.

Prepare your crane engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your crane engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a crane engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable crane engineer resume templates

Build a professional crane engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your crane engineer resume.