The demand for Civil Engineering

Unlike many engineering branches, the demand for Civil Engineering has a direct relation with population growth. In fact, this is why Civil Engineering continues to be the largest engineering branch in terms of employment, compared with equally conventional branches like Mechanical Engineering or modern branches like Computer Science, which is mainly due to this direct relation with population growth. More people mean more apartments, and more people also eventually lead to a larger employee pool – thereby increasing both residential and commercial construction.

The demand for Civil Engineering also has a direct correlation with economic growth. This is because, periods of economic slowdown will leave no funds for infrastructure development, while periods of economic growth will provide surplus funds that will be gobbled up in no time by the pending infrastructure needs. In the coming years and decades, economic slowdowns will be better predicted, if not avoided, thanks to the better interventional strategies by institutions like the Federal Reserve. This will leave funds ever available for infrastructure development, and will generate steady demand for Civil Engineers in the coming years.

Most Civil Engineering projects like roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, railway lines, airports, seaports, water supplies, sewage systems, buildings, etc. are also heavy on maintenance and repair, and such regular work contributes to the great demand for Civil Engineers. The need for high-speed, highly-safe mass transportation systems like underground or undersea railways is another major driver for the advancement of Civil Engineering.

Civil Engineering of today is also a professionally satisfying career, with good salaries and technologically updated work. Though average salaries of Civil Engineers are not very high, many of them draw as much as US $95,000 and none of them draw below US $43,500. They also get to work in high-tech areas like earthquake-resistant designs, and make heavy use of tools like Computer Aided Design / Engineering (CAD/CAE).