How To Become An Industrial Safety Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an industrial safety engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Guiping Hu Ph.D.

The average industrial safety engineer salary is $80,974. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an industrial engineering major. It usually takes 1-2 years of experience to become an industrial safety engineer. Industrial safety engineers with a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 800 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to an industrial safety engineer?

Guiping Hu Ph.D.

Professor and Department Head, Oklahoma State University

People like the diversity and flexibility of being an industrial engineer. You can work on all kinds of problems with your industrial engineering skills. However, if you are only looking for a very narrow area in a specific engineering discipline, industrial engineering may not be right for you since we focus on system efficiency improvement and welfare of the workers.

ScoreIndustrial Safety EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.3

Avg. Salary $80,974

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.2

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 9.76%

Black or African American 4.73%

Hispanic or Latino 11.62%

Unknown 3.95%

White 69.78%

Gender

female 15.44%

male 84.56%

Age - 41

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 - 41

Stress level

7.2

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.4

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an industrial safety engineer

Explore industrial safety engineer education requirements

Most common industrial safety engineer degrees

Bachelor's

62.6 %

Master's

24.3 %

Associate

11.3 %

Start to develop specific industrial safety engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
OSHA	20.26%
Fall Protection	9.09%
Safety Program	7.85%
Hoisting	5.86%
Safety Analysis	5.24%

Complete relevant industrial safety engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New industrial safety 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 an industrial safety engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real industrial safety engineer resumes.

Research industrial safety engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage hazardous and special waste programs and profiles including audits/inspections, vendor compliance, documentation and recordkeeping.
Handle permitting and emissions reporting for EPA.
Implement industrial safety programs and requirements for machinery in the field, plant and quarry according to OSHA standards.
Write and implement programs as needed relate to EHS from rodent control to construction safety management and evaluation of contractors.

Prepare your industrial safety engineer resume

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

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