If you don’t have anything against relocating to a place better suited for your skill set, check out our list of best states for industrial engineers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data tells us that there were 241,100 industrial engineers employed in the United States in 2014. Most of them were employed in Aerospace Product and Parts and other manufacturing industries. There are projections saying the number of employed industrial engineers will increase by 1% nationwide from 2014 to 2024. We know that doesn’t sound too encouraging, but it’s better than nothing. The one thing that industrial engineers have in their favor is versatility. They are not specialized for just one field, like the majority of other engineers, so they can be useful for numerous industries. There is also projected increase of retirements in this occupation, which will ultimately lead to more job openings.
Let’s talk about money. In terms of median annual wage, industrial engineers were earning $84,310, which is just below average for all engineers. The highest earning 10% of them increased their bank accounts for $129,390, while the lowest 10% were paid $54,070 per year. Oil, gas and petroleum related industries were the highest paying ones. If you are, by any chance, a nuclear engineer, you will be glad to hear that your occupation is better paid. You can get familiar with more details on our list of 15 Best States For Nuclear Engineers.
Shall we now proceed onto finding the best states for industrial engineers? We figured that people like to get paid well, get more job opportunities and live in a place with low cost of living. That is why we took those three factors into consideration when creating the list. We looked into every state’s data about the cost of living (Missouri Economy), annual median wage (BSL) and projected job growth (Projections Central) for industrial engineers and ranked them accordingly for each of these factors. After combining all the rankings into our IM Score, the list took shape. Now, let’s check out the list of best states for industrial engineers.