What this occupation does
Civil engineers perform engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures and facilities. The role spans structural analysis, project planning, regulatory permitting, on-site supervision, and stakeholder coordination across infrastructure and building projects.
The exposure score in context
The ILO 2025 refined Generative AI Occupational Exposure Index places civil engineers in the moderate exposure gradient. ILO 2025 places civil engineers in the moderate exposure gradient. Routine analysis, drafting, and standard reports are exposed; on-site supervision, complex project coordination, and engineering judgement are augmentation-prone but not displaceable at task level.
The mapping uses ISCO-08 code 2142 (BLS-published SOC-to-ISCO crosswalk). The full methodology, including the dominant-match rule for one-to-many crosswalks, is at /methodology/#algorithm.
The top five tasks, classified
The top five O*NET 30.2 tasks for this occupation, each tagged Displaceable / Changing / Growing per the Brookings 2024 task-level rubric. The tag definitions are at /glossary/#displaceable-task, /glossary/#changing-task, and /glossary/#growing-task.
- Growing: Manage and direct the construction, operations, or maintenance activities at project site. On-site management is physical and contextually constrained; not displaceable at task level.
- Growing: Direct construction, operations, or maintenance activities at project site. Direction of construction work requires real-time physical judgement; augmentation-prone.
- Growing: Provide technical advice to industrial or managerial personnel regarding design, construction, or program modifications or structural repairs. Technical-advisory work is high-judgement and grows in importance as AI handles more analysis.
- Growing: Test soils or materials to determine the adequacy and strength of foundations, concrete, asphalt, or steel. Materials testing is physical and not in scope for generative AI displacement.
- Changing: Compute load and grade requirements, water flow rates, or material stress factors to determine design specifications. AI-assisted computation is widely used; engineering accountability remains human.
What is growing in this role
The BLS Employment Projections 2024-2034 outlook for civil engineers is faster than average (+5% projected change, +18.5k jobs). Source: BLS Employment Projections 2024-2034.
Per the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, the top three growing skills relevant to this role are: Analytical thinking, AI and big data, Environmental stewardship. The skills are mapped to the occupation's O*NET skills profile.
Brookings 2024 places civil engineering across the spectrum: routine analysis is exposed; on-site judgement, design accountability, and physical-system testing are augmentation-prone.
Similar occupations
O*NET 30.2 lists the following related roles. Each links to its own deep dive where one is published.
- Architects, Except Landscape and Naval
- Construction Laborers
- Software Developers
- Data Scientists
- Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
Industry context
This role sits primarily in the Manufacturing industry. The industry-level rollup includes the cross-occupation exposure profile and the BLS-published industry-level outlook.
How this assessment was made
The full methodology is at /methodology/: ILO 2025 refined index for the gradient, Brookings 2024 rubric for the task tags, BLS 2024-2034 for the growth outlook, WEF 2025 for the skills demand. The pre-empted critiques are at /how-to-argue-with-this/.