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

What is a sanitary 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 sanitary engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $37.62 an hour? That's $78,240 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 85,500 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreSanitary EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.1

Avg. Salary $78,240

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.72%

Asian 4.56%

Black or African American 12.18%

Hispanic or Latino 21.18%

Unknown 4.59%

White 55.77%

Gender

female 19.87%

male 80.13%

Age - 51

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 - 51

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.0

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

9.1

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a sanitary engineer

Explore sanitary engineer education requirements

Most common sanitary engineer degrees

Bachelor's

63.6 %

High School Diploma

12.5 %

Associate

9.1 %

Start to develop specific sanitary engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Plumbing	22.42%
Cost Estimates	17.89%
Site Inspections	14.58%
Water Quality Data	9.43%
Water Discharge	6.35%

Complete relevant sanitary engineer training and internships

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

Research sanitary engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage the design process for numerous infrastructure projects.
Manage a geotechnical investigation that include determining boring locations and soliciting bids.
Coordinate with landfill maintenance staff for close landfill maintenance and regulatory compliance activities.
Up to that moment, the sole remedy systematically propose for such landfill sites are capping.

Prepare your sanitary engineer resume

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

Build a professional sanitary 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 sanitary engineer resume.