Corrosion Engineering Jobs: Hot Industry Leads to High Demand

March 26, 2010

I recently received information about job opportunities from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE). Until I received their fact sheet about this line of work, I didn’t even know that it existed. It turns out if you have a mind for math and science, are good with your hands and want a stable, well-paid job, corrosion engineering is a great field to pursue right now.

According to NACE, America’s aging infrastructure matched with the high number of retirement age corrosion engineers puts this work in extra high demand. When searching the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), I didn’t find an exact job match but I did find information about stationary engineers and boiler operators who are in charge of maintaining engines, turbines, pumps, condensers, compressors and more. The BLS predicts that these jobs will not see very high growth, only 5 percent by 2016, due to the high pay offered and stiff competition for positions. But, the BLS data doesn’t seem to include all of the jobs that NACE focuses on.

NACE says that 44 percent of corrosion engineers are expected to retire in the next three to seven years. The work is very hands on usually involves working in the oil and gas, shipping, manufacturing, transportation and electrical utilities industries. NACE even has a special program set up to encourage returning military to get trained as corrosion engineers once they finish their military service.

What does PayScale have to tell us about corrosion engineers? According to PayScale’s data, a lot of corrosion engineers work in Texas. They are predominantly male and their salary increases significantly with more years of experience. Their most common skills are material science and engineering design, and many have a master’s in science degree. Their most common certification is an Engineer in Training (EIT) and many of them graduate from the University of Houston.