There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior structural designer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $64.63 an hour? That's $134,424 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 1,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many senior structural designers 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 analytical skills, business skills and writing skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior structural designer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.3% of senior structural designers included autocad, while 9.7% of resumes included structural steel, and 9.1% of resumes included construction documents. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior structural designer job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior structural designers actually find jobs in the manufacturing and construction industries.
If you're interested in becoming a senior structural designer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 31.2% of senior structural designers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.8% of senior structural designers have master's degrees. Even though some senior structural designers 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 senior structural designer. When we researched the most common majors for a senior structural designer, we found that they most commonly earn associate degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior structural designer resumes include high school diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior structural designer. In fact, many senior structural designer jobs require experience in a role such as structural designer. Meanwhile, many senior structural designers also have previous career experience in roles such as senior designer or draftsman.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of lead designer you might progress to a role such as project manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title construction manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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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, 17.3% of senior structural designers listed autocad on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and business skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior structural designer. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, Colorado, New York, and Washington. Senior structural designers make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $144,471. Whereas in Colorado and New York, they would average $132,075 and $130,238, respectively. While senior structural designers would only make an average of $130,152 in Washington, 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. Alaska
$144,472
Avg. Salary
2. Colorado
$132,076
Avg. Salary
3. Georgia
$123,652
Avg. Salary