A drilling engineer is responsible for planning and executing operations that drill for gas and oil. They are involved in the entire drilling life cycle, from initial well design to testing to supervising a drilling crew. Drilling engineers often work on teams of geologists, drilling contractors, and other construction managers.
The duties that they perform in this capacity include designing drilling plans, evaluating drilling sites, calculating overhead drilling costs, maintaining stakeholder communication, and monitoring drilling processes. Skills required for the position include data analysis, budgeting, interpersonal, analytical, and leadership. Educational requirements include a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or a similar field. Prior experience may be given preference.
The average hourly salary for the position is $52.56, which amounts to $109,326 annually. The job requires flexibility at times; however, it compensates graciously. The career is expected to see growth in the near future and create new opportunities all across the United States.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a drilling engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $45.15 an hour? That's $93,909 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 900 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many drilling engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, creativity and math skills.
If you're interested in becoming a drilling engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 80.3% of drilling engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.8% of drilling engineers have master's degrees. Even though most drilling engineers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a drilling engineer. When we researched the most common majors for a drilling engineer, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on drilling engineer resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a drilling engineer. In fact, many drilling engineer jobs require experience in a role such as engineering internship. Meanwhile, many drilling engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as field engineer or internship.