How To Become A Project Inspector: What It Is and Career Path

What is a project inspector 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 project inspector. For example, did you know that they make an average of $32.72 an hour? That's $68,048 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -4% and produce -5,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreProject InspectorUS Average

Salary

5.3

Avg. Salary $68,048

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.4

Growth rate -4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.90%

Asian 3.41%

Black or African American 8.00%

Hispanic or Latino 13.06%

Unknown 5.75%

White 68.89%

Gender

female 9.78%

male 90.22%

Age - 52

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 - 52

Stress level

7.4

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.4

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a project inspector

Explore project inspector education requirements

Most common project inspector degrees

Bachelor's

68.6 %

Associate

13.1 %

Master's

8.3 %

Start to develop specific project inspector skills

Skills	Percentages
Construction Projects	11.58%
Asphalt	8.38%
Traffic Control	8.20%
Inspection Reports	7.02%
DOT	6.90%

Complete relevant project inspector training and internships

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

Research project inspector duties and responsibilities

Manage third party contractors including safety oversight, environmental design specification compliance, and similar construction specifications and requirements.
Work with OSHA as immediate response of safety issues at nuclear power plants.
Coordinate with designers drawing clarification's and RFI's to ensure contractor work progress.
Verify NCDOT bridge design plans to ensure span lengths, materials, and directions match with WIGINSinformation.

Prepare your project inspector resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your project inspector 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 project inspector resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable project inspector resume templates

Build a professional project inspector 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 project inspector resume.