If you need some help with deciding which college is the best choice for you, here’s the list of 10 easiest engineering degrees to get a job to help you decide.
Before we plunge into our list, there are few things to consider. First of all, there isn’t a definitive answer to the easiest engineering branch question. When making a list of engineering majors by difficulty people will rank them according to their own preferences and interest, which means any such list will be inherently biased. Needless to say, reaching a consensus on such an issue can be a tricky proposition. One of the reasons behind that is that engineering is one of the most varied fields of human endeavor. It ranges from designing computer processors to building dams and bridges, with everything else in between. From the depths of the mining pits to space, one would be hard-pressed to find a human activity that isn’t touched by engineering in some degree. Every object we use daily has been either designed or constructed by an engineer. If nuclear physics is your passion, then nuclear engineering will be far easier for you compared to someone who doesn’t really care about splitting atoms or projecting a new type of reactor that will prevent future Fukushimas and Chernobyls. The same goes for every other branch of engineering. Somebody who always dreamt about space travel will be right at home in aerospace engineering school but will have a hard time learning about intricacies of mining engineering.
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Another thing that affects the hardest engineering major ranking is the actual school future engineers are attending. When comparing any of the top 20 engineering schools in America with some of their less esteemed counterparts, results will be quite different. Even among top engineering schools, there will be some discrepancies. For instance, if a school has a rather small class of chemical engineers, it will be easier to study there, despite it being one of the hardest engineering majors available. Professors will bend over backward to help their students graduate, seeing that making their department impossibly hard doesn’t really do wonders for their job security. Departments with massive numbers of students don’t have to worry about that and can adopt more hunger games type of approach.
In order to make a lit of easiest engineering degrees to get a job, we have gone by the Vox populi. After an extensive scouring of the most popular forums on the Internet, we have chosen several threads where people discuss which engineering is easy to study. The easiest engineering degree is something people really like to talk about, especially on Reddit, which has dozens of discussions on the topic. Another forum that likes to list top ten hardest engineering majors is College Confidential, which also offers plenty of material on the most difficult engineering discipline.
Staying away from most difficult engineering degree is just one part of the equation. Regardless of how easy it is to obtain any engineering degree, it will be quite useless unless you can find a job. That is why we consulted United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and their Employment outlook for engineering occupations to 2024 report. Report consist of the projected growth of every major engineering branch until 2024, just about as generations enrolling in colleges in the next few years enter the workforce. The report presents some interesting projections. For instance, aerospace engineers, a branch always associated with future technological progress and perceived as a sure bet when it comes to future jobs, is predicted to decline by 2.3%. On the other hand, with all the hype about the green energy, fossil fuels are deemed to be going the way of the Dodo. Petroleum engineers are thought to be on the way to becoming fossils themselves, but instead, they have one of the highest projected growth rates, at 9.8%.
We combined these two ranking in order to create the most accurate list of easiest engineering degrees to get a job. After some thought, we decided against including the salary in our ranking system, since it would skew the results quite badly, but we did list median income for each branch in our list, just so that you may know what to expect.
10. Mining & geological engineers
Projected growth: 6.4%
Median annual wage: $94,040
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 8,800
Dwarfs delved too greedily and too deep into the Moria and have awakened Balrog, a mistake which would have been easily avoided should they have employed a proper mining engineer. Jokes aside, designing mining pits and getting minerals out on the surface isn’t for everyone. That is why mining engineers have some of the highest salaries of all engineering branches.
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9. Mechanical engineers
Projected growth: 5.3%
Median annual wage: $83,590
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 292,100
We are continuing our list of easiest engineering degrees to get a job with mechanical engineering, which is one of the most versatile branches in the world. There is hardly an industry that doesn’t employ them and uses their skills in designing machinery and parts needed in everyday operations. That is why they are so numerous and their numbers are projected to increase even more, to almost 300,000, second among all engineering branches.
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8. Nuclear engineers
Projected growth: -4.0%
Median annual wage: $102,950
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 16,200
With a projected 4% decline in jobs of until 2024, nuclear engineers, which rank 8th on our list of easiest engineering degrees to get a job, are in a spot of trouble, job-security wise. Fukushima disaster dealt a terrible blow to the entire industry, with countries closing their nuclear power plants left and right. Still, there will always be a need for nuclear engineers, at least in the military if nothing else.
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7. Agricultural engineers
Projected growth: 4.4%
Median annual wage: $75,090
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 3,000
Up next on our list of easiest engineering degrees to get a job we have agricultural engineers. Their main area of concern is design and construction of agricultural equipment. Essentially a highly specialized branch of mechanical engineering, there aren’t that many of them and the pay isn’t exactly lavish, compared to other fields (in fact, their median wage is the lowest), but if you want to design a more efficient plow or harvester, this is the school for you.
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6. Petroleum engineers
Projected growth: 9.8%
Median annual wage: $129,990
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 38,500
Despite the predictions that green energy will take over, petroleum engineers don’t have to fear for their jobs, at least in the immediate future. With strong growth and the highest median income, this branch seems to be an excellent career choice for people who don’t mind to get dirty on some oil field. Apparently, many people agree that it isn’t that hard a degree to obtain.
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And now, let’s see the top five easiest engineering degrees to get a job.
5. Electrical engineers
Projected growth: 1.0%
Median annual wage: $93,010
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 180,200
Are Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison your heroes? Join their biggest fan club in the world, electrical engineers. Everything that deals with electrical power (and rare are the thins today that don’t) was designed or manufactured by an electrical engineer. With a respectable median age and a decent number of jobs, electrical engineering sounds like an excellent career to pursue.
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4. Health & safety engineers
Projected growth: 6.2%
Median annual wage: $84,600
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 26,800
Designing equipment and procedures that help keep people safe seem like a noble profession, yet health and safety engineers have one of the worst reputation among their fellow engineers. Often, they are seen as meddling busybodies on a power trip, getting their kicks from telling their coworkers how to do their jobs. Until an accident happens, that is. Then all of a sudden, everything is their fault and everyone is pointing fingers at them.
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3. Materials engineers
Projected growth: 1.3%
Median annual wage: $91,310
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 25,600
Material engineers rank third on our list of easiest engineering degrees to get a job. They don’t only deal with existing materials; they also create new ones, tailored to the needs of the project.
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2. Industrial engineers
Projected growth: 0.9%
Median annual wage: $83,470
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 243,200
Designing industrial equipment is just one facet of industrial engineers’ job. The other one is designing processes that ensure the most efficient use of the said equipment and that is where good industrial engineers shine. Integration and exploitation of complex system found in modern factories can be a daunting task, yet our sources mostly agree that industrial engineering degree is one of the easiest to get.
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1. Civil engineers
Projected growth: 8,4%
Median annual wage: $82,220
Projected number of jobs in 2024: 305,000
Civil engineers are the stepchildren of engineering. The amount of disrespect they get is sometimes mindboggling. Some of the people on the forums we used as sources even went as far as stating that civil engineering isn’t engineering at all. All that for people who design roads, bridges, and dams without which civilization as we know it wouldn’t exist. Civil engineers are the most numerous group in the engineering field, and civil engineering jobs are expected to surpass 300,000 by 2014. Compared with the relative easiness of getting the degree, it is easy to see why civil engineering is on the top spot among 10 easiest engineering degrees to get a job.
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