How To Become A Planning Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a planning engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted Expert

Guiping Hu Ph.D.

A Planning engineer assists engineering teams in delivering projects on schedule. As a planning engineer, you are expected to deliver strategies and determine the cost of both labor and material. You are also to monitor the performance of the crew and ensure that all safety and health rules and regulations are strictly followed.

In addition, as a planning engineer, you must interpret data and deliver presentations if and when needed. Compilation of reports is also your duty. You must also delegate tasks and make sure workers receive adequate feedback, and you must ensure that every project is completed within budget and stipulated time.

To be a planning engineer, you must hold a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, or electrical engineering. An average planning engineer earns at least $76,539 in a year.

What general advice would you give to a Planning Engineer?

Guiping Hu Ph.D.

Professor and Department Head, Oklahoma State University

People like the diversity and flexibility of being an industrial engineer. You can work on all kinds of problems with your industrial engineering skills. However, if you are only looking for a very narrow area in a specific engineering discipline, industrial engineering may not be right for you since we focus on system efficiency improvement and welfare of the workers.

ScorePlanning EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.4

Avg. Salary $82,521

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

7.5

Growth Rate 10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 15.55%

Black or African American 4.30%

Hispanic or Latino 10.55%

Unknown 3.89%

White 65.54%

Gender

female 16.83%

male 83.17%

Age - 41

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 - 41

Stress Level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.3

Complexity Level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

5.1

Work Life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a planning engineer

Explore planning engineer education requirements

Most common planning engineer degrees

Bachelor's

74.7 %

Master's

15.6 %

Associate

5.5 %

Start to develop specific planning engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	10.52%
Infrastructure	9.69%
Transmission Planning	8.17%
NERC	6.51%
Cost Estimates	4.22%

Complete relevant planning engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New planning engineers 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 a planning engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real planning engineer resumes.

Research planning engineer duties and responsibilities

Create and automate customize KPI dashboard reports using a combination of SQL and visual basic scripts.
Manage retrofit projects for progressive stamping equipment.
Manage IP address inventory and bandwidth capacity.
Manage multiple projects involving both internal and vendor resources affecting national production infrastructure.

Get planning engineer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a planning engineer. The most common roles before becoming a planning engineer include project engineer, engineer team lead and internship.

Prepare your planning engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your planning engineer 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 a planning engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Planning Engineer Resume templates

Build a professional Planning Engineer 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 Planning Engineer resume.

Apply for planning engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a planning engineer 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

How do planning engineers rate their job?