Design the systems that keep water drinkable, air breathable and contaminated ground safe. Four years of school, then a license if you want to sign off on designs.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $107,110 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $69,990 at the lower end to about $162,220 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$30,300 to $65,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$107,110
Bottom tenth
$69,990
Top tenth
$162,220
The national median is $107,110 a year, the bottom tenth earn $69,990 or less and the top tenth $162,220 or more, in the 2025 federal wage survey. This is a published figure for environmental engineers specifically, not a broader group.
$69,990 to $83,570
The bottom tenth and bottom quarter of environmental engineers, 2025
A first job out of a four-year engineering degree usually pays in this lower part of the range. Passing the licensing exam is what lets you run your own projects.
$134,420 or more
What the best paid quarter of environmental engineers earned in 2025, mostly licensed engineers
The license comes after about 4 years of supervised experience. Without a license you work under someone who has one. With it, you can seal drawings and reports, take legal responsibility for a design and be the named engineer on a project. It is the clearest single step up in what you are allowed to do.
Roughly, all in
$30,300 to $65,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is two years at a community college and then a transfer to an in state public university to finish the accredited degree, plus the fundamentals of engineering exam usually taken in your final year. The high end is all four years at the top of the in state public range, plus the professional engineer exam, the state license application and the first renewal. Out of state or private tuition can roughly double the top figure. Engineering degrees carry a lot of paid internships, so many students graduate owing less than classmates in other subjects.
Fill in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for Pell Grants and federal loans, and take the first two years at a community college if money is tight. Engineering degrees carry a lot of paid internships, so a lot of students graduate with less debt than their classmates in other subjects.
Employer-paid licensing
Most firms pay your exam fees and your study materials.
Government pensions
State environmental agencies, cities and water utilities hire heavily and many still offer defined-benefit pensions, which pay a set amount every month for life.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Federal, state and city engineering jobs qualify. Ten years of payments on an income driven plan and the remaining federal student loan balance can be forgiven.
Paid internships and co-op terms
Standard in engineering degrees, and they usually turn into the first job offer.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Four years to a job, about eight to a full license.
High school diploma
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, chemistry and physics. Engineering programs assume all three and admission is based on them.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Environmental engineering, or civil engineering with an environmental focus. Make sure the program is accredited for engineering, not engineering technology.
Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam
Final year
Taken near graduation. Passing makes you an engineer in training, which is the first half of licensure.
Work under a licensed engineer
4 years
Usually four years of documented, supervised experience at a consulting firm, an agency or a utility.
Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam and state license
After the experience
Pass the environmental discipline exam and apply to your state board. Then you can seal your own work.
Calculus
Engineering programs start at calculus. Arriving without it costs you a year.
Chemistry
More important here than in any other engineering branch. Treatment, contamination and air quality are all chemistry.
Physics
Flow, pressure and energy underpin every system you will design.
Biology
Wastewater treatment is largely a matter of keeping the right microbes alive and fed.
You can work as an engineer under a licensed one without a license of your own. Every state requires the PE (Professional Engineer) license to sign and seal plans or offer engineering to the public, and each state has its own board, though the exams are the same everywhere. One thing to check before you enroll anywhere: your degree needs to be accredited under the engineering commission of ABET (the accreditor for engineering and technology degree programs), not the separate engineering technology commission, or some state boards will not accept it.
State universities
Nearly every state has at least one accredited environmental or civil engineering program, and in-state tuition makes it the best value.
Community college transfer
Two years of math and science at community college prices, then transfer into the engineering school. Check which credits transfer first.
Civil engineering with an environmental track
More common than a standalone environmental degree, and it keeps more career doors open.
Master's degree
Not required, but common for water treatment design, air modeling and for moving faster into senior work.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Water and wastewater treatment
Designing the plants that make water drinkable and sewage harmless. The oldest and steadiest part of the job.
Contaminated site cleanup
Investigating and remediating polluted ground and groundwater, often at old industrial sites.
Air quality and permitting
Modeling emissions and getting industrial permits approved. Regulation heavy.
Stormwater and flooding
Managing runoff and flood risk, and growing fast as storms get heavier.
Solid waste and landfills
Unglamorous, essential, and consistently in demand in every county in the country.
Technical writing
Much of the output is reports and permit applications that regulators and the public will read.
Mapping and data software
Geographic mapping tools and modeling packages are used daily, and employers ask which ones you know.
A summer at a water utility or a state agency
The clearest way to see whether you prefer designing systems or regulating them.
Public speaking
Environmental projects get argued about at public meetings, and the engineer is usually the one explaining them.
The Environmental Protection Agency and every state's environmental agency hire engineers directly, and cities hire them for water, sewer and stormwater systems. Federal hiring runs through a public job site with separate routes for current students, recent graduates and veterans, and the pay is set by grade rather than negotiated. The hours are often saner, the pension is real, and the work qualifies for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. A lot of people do a few years in government and then move to consulting at a higher level because they know how the regulator thinks.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly an office and a computer: sizing a treatment process, running a model, checking a contractor's submittal, writing the report that goes to the regulator. Then a site visit, which might be a water treatment plant, a landfill, a construction site or a field of monitoring wells at a contaminated property. There is a call with a client who wants the permit faster and a call with an agency reviewer who wants three more things in the application. Deadlines come from permit cycles and construction seasons, not from you.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act set limits that somebody has to actually meet, and meeting them takes designed systems. Nearly every environmental engineering job in the country traces back to a rule that says a number cannot be exceeded.
A wastewater plant works by keeping billions of microorganisms alive in tanks and feeding them the waste. The engineer's job is to give those microbes the right oxygen, temperature and time. Get it wrong and the whole plant sours.
The federal career profile counts 39,100 environmental engineers in 2025 and expects faster than average growth to 2035, with about 2,300 openings a year.
In the federal survey of environmental engineers, 62% said a new hire needs a bachelor's degree and 29% a master's degree.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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