Plant engineers oversee a manufacturing plant's electrical and mechanical needs. They ensure that the plant is operating smoothly by planning and coordinating activities concerned with the design and construction of equipment and machinery in an industrial plant. They earn a median salary of $85,000 annually or $41 per hour.
Plant engineers can work in various organizations, and as such, their duties may vary. However, they are typically tasked with monitoring and maintaining plant equipment and machinery as well as reviewing project plans to ensure that timelines and blueprints are accurate. Due to the nature of the job, their analytical, math, and mechanical skills are exceptional.
Plant engineers mostly hold a bachelor's degree in mechanical, electrical, or industrial engineering. Although, larger organizations may require a higher academic degree. On-the-job experience in a similar field is preferred by some employers. Also, it will be best to get some licenses and certifications, although these vary by state.
How to Become a Plant Engineer
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a plant engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $42.43 an hour? That's $88,252 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 1% and produce 1,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Plant Engineer Do
There are certain skills that many plant 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 leadership skills, time-management skills and interpersonal skills.
How To Become a Plant Engineer
If you're interested in becoming a plant engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 74.2% of plant engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.0% of plant engineers have master's degrees. Even though most plant engineers have a college degree, it's possible 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 plant engineer. When we researched the most common majors for a plant engineer, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on plant engineer resumes include master's degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a plant engineer. In fact, many plant engineer jobs require experience in a role such as project engineer. Meanwhile, many plant engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as process engineer or maintenance supervisor.
Plant Engineer Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a plant engineer can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as project engineer, progress to a title such as senior manufacturing engineer and then eventually end up with the title manufacturing engineering manager.
Average Salary for a Plant Engineer
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Plant Engineers
1. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
2. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
3. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Private
4. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
5. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
6. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL • Private
7. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY • Private
8. Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY • Private
9. Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD • Private
10. Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
Top Skills For a Plant Engineer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 12.2% of plant engineers listed procedures on their resume, but soft skills such as leadership skills and time-management skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Plant Engineer Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Plant Engineer templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Plant Engineer resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Plant Engineer Demographics
Plant Engineer Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among plant engineers, 7.7% of them are women, while 92.3% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among plant engineers is White, which makes up 75.3% of all plant engineers.
- The most common foreign language among plant engineers is Spanish at 51.6%.
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Best States For a Plant Engineer
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a plant engineer. The best states for people in this position are Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California. Plant engineers make the most in Florida with an average salary of $100,005. Whereas in Louisiana and Texas, they would average $97,861 and $97,287, respectively. While plant engineers would only make an average of $96,683 in California, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Arizona
$95,258
Avg. Salary
2. Texas
$97,287
Avg. Salary
3. Alabama
$92,146
Avg. Salary
How Do Plant Engineer Rate Their Jobs?
Top Plant Engineer Employers
Most Common Employers For Plant Engineer
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exxon Mobil | $112,035 | $53.86 | 26 |
| 2 | Reddy Ice | $94,668 | $45.51 | 16 |
| 3 | Pfizer | $94,524 | $45.44 | 19 |
| 4 | General Motors | $94,177 | $45.28 | 36 |
| 5 | General Dynamics | $94,019 | $45.20 | 14 |
| 6 | Ford Motor | $93,779 | $45.09 | 37 |
| 7 | Air Liquide | $93,050 | $44.74 | 18 |
| 8 | American Electric Power | $92,577 | $44.51 | 15 |
| 9 | Praxair | $91,481 | $43.98 | 35 |
| 10 | UPS | $90,815 | $43.66 | 50 |
Plant Engineer Videos
