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

What is a pollution control 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 pollution control engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.16 an hour? That's $68,964 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 1,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScorePollution Control EngineerUS Average

Salary

5.4

Avg. Salary $68,964

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.5

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.42%

Asian 10.60%

Black or African American 1.87%

Hispanic or Latino 7.69%

Unknown 3.74%

White 75.68%

Gender

female 24.24%

male 75.76%

Age - 42

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 - 42

Stress level

6.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a pollution control engineer

Explore pollution control engineer education requirements

Most common pollution control engineer degrees

Bachelor's

90.6 %

Doctorate

3.1 %

Master's

3.1 %

Start to develop specific pollution control engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Air Pollution Control	84.50%
Title V	15.50%

Complete relevant pollution control engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New pollution control 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 pollution control engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real pollution control engineer resumes.

Research pollution control engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage and conduct various environmental engineering projects at DOD facilities.
Supervise facility and material flow diagram design/drafting via AutoCAD, and final permit renewal application documents preparation for TCEQ evaluation/approval.
Supervise geotechnical investigations, foundation inspections for residential and high-rise buildings including foundation design analysis.

Get pollution control engineer experience

Generally, it takes 6-12 months to become a pollution control engineer. The most common roles before becoming a pollution control engineer include environmental engineer, project engineer team lead and quality control chemist.

Prepare your pollution control engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your pollution control 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 pollution control 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 pollution control engineer resume templates

Build a professional pollution control 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 pollution control engineer resume.