How To Become An Environmental Engineer/Scientist: What It Is and Career Path

What is an environmental engineer/scientist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted Expert

Andrea Welker Ph.D.

Ever since modern civilization started and groups of people began to live in permanent settlements, they have been dealing with challenges to get clean water, disposing of solid and sewage waste, and making a clean and healthy environment. With the growth of towns and large-scale manufacturing industries, people are anxious about soil contamination and air quality.

Environmental scientists must protect people from these adverse environmental effects such as pollution control, improving air quality, environmental quality, public health, water quality, and disposal.

You must hold a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering or a related field as a minimum educational qualification with analytical skills, writing skills, communication skills, problem-solving skills, technical and general knowledge, and environmental regulations. You need to work for more than 40 hours per week with a salary ranging between $25.5 to $65.91 per hour.

As an Environmental scientist, you need to work as an engineer in urban and regional planning offices, attend seminars and audits, carry out site supervision with environmental code and conducts, make models forecast the environmental issues, perform environmental investigations, and find out preventive measures.

What general advice would you give to an Environmental Engineer/Scientist?

Andrea Welker Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villanova University

Be open to new experiences. Find a good mentor. Become a valued employee. Always remember that you are designing something for someone.

ScoreEnvironmental Engineer/ScientistUS Average

Salary

6.1

Avg. Salary $78,194

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

6.5

Growth Rate 4%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.44%

Asian 12.98%

Black or African American 3.59%

Hispanic or Latino 10.31%

Unknown 3.84%

White 68.84%

Gender

female 29.67%

male 70.33%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress Level

6.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.3

Complexity Level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

4.6

Work Life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an environmental engineer/scientist

Explore environmental engineer/scientist education requirements

Most common environmental engineer/scientist degrees

Bachelor's

77.5 %

Master's

15.0 %

Doctorate

3.8 %

Start to develop specific environmental engineer/scientist skills

Skills	Percentages
OSHA	11.13%
Environmental Engineering	9.71%
Oversight	8.65%
EPA	8.15%
Groundwater	6.05%

Complete relevant environmental engineer/scientist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New environmental engineers/scientist learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an environmental engineer/scientist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real environmental engineer/scientist resumes.

Research environmental engineer/scientist duties and responsibilities

Manage Jenkins security by providing specific access to authorize developers/testers using project base matrix authorization strategy.
Perform safety and health monitoring and oversight on all projects.
Present audit results to site level director and EHS senior managers.
Conduct personnel oversight and supervision.

Prepare your environmental engineer/scientist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your environmental engineer/scientist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an environmental engineer/scientist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Environmental Engineer/Scientist Resume templates

Build a professional Environmental Engineer/Scientist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Environmental Engineer/Scientist resume.

Apply for environmental engineer/scientist jobs

Now it's time to start searching for an environmental engineer/scientist job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

Average environmental engineer/scientist salary

The average Environmental Engineer/Scientist salary in the United States is $78,194 per year or $38 per hour. Environmental engineer/scientist salaries range between $49,000 and $122,000 per year.

Average Environmental Engineer/Scientist Salary

$78,194 Yearly

$37.59 hourly

How do environmental engineers/scientist rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

4 Stars

3 Stars

2 Stars

1 Star

Environmental Engineer/Scientist reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2021

Pros

Firstly, the most important is to protect our planet for us and the future generations. Secondly our planet is not going to support the pressure and negative impacts because of the big Increased human population . Finally our planet needs more and more environmental specialists to regulate and control all human activities, especially the ilegal ones.

Cons

I don’t like when big companies they know what’s wrong and what’s right, but still the destroy, like cutting trees in Brazil and the other side big companies even knowing those trees are ilegal, but still they continuing to porches. There for I can’t understand and I don’t like.

A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2020