Work out how to get oil and gas out of rock, safely and cheaply. The highest paid bachelor's degree on this site, tied to a price you do not control.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$144,910
New graduate
$81,440
Senior, offshore or management
$253,200
The national median is $144,910 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $81,440. That median is the highest of any engineering degree in the federal wage survey. It is also the most exposed: pay and hiring both swing hard with the price of oil.
$81,440 and up
The bottom tenth of the survey, which is roughly where graduates land
A new graduate in a good year can start well above that. In a downturn the same graduate may not get an offer at all, which is the honest shape of this career.
$253,200 a year
Senior reservoir and drilling engineers, offshore roles, managers
Base salary is only part of it. Annual bonuses tied to company performance, and field or offshore allowances for rotational schedules, are what push experienced engineers past a quarter of a million dollars.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is two years of community college credits transferred into an in state public engineering program, plus the Fundamentals of Engineering exam in your final year. The high end is four full years at an in state public university at the upper end of the tuition range, plus that exam and the four hundred and twenty five dollar professional licensing exam years later if you choose to get licensed. Out of state tuition at a public university, or a private university, can double the whole figure, so residency status is the single biggest lever you control. Summer internships in oil and gas are among the best paid of any field and scholarships through the Society of Petroleum Engineers are plentiful, so the sticker price is often not what students actually pay.
Fill in the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. It is the gate to Pell Grants and to federal student loans, and oil companies also hand out a lot of scholarships through the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Base salary
High from day one, reviewed each year.
Annual bonus
Tied to company results, so it tracks the oil price. It can be a third of your pay or close to nothing.
Field and offshore allowances
Extra pay for rotations, remote sites and time away from home.
Service company versus operator
Operators own the wells and usually pay more steadily. Service companies pay well in booms and cut first in busts.
Overtime
Rare for engineers. You are salaried, and the hours during a well operation are long anyway.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
One accredited degree, then straight into industry. Shorter than most careers that pay this much.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, physics and chemistry, as strong as you can get them. Engineering admission is competitive on grades.
Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering
4 years
Four years at a program accredited by ABET (the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). Chemical and mechanical engineering degrees also get hired into the industry.
Internships every summer
This is how almost everyone gets a first job. Companies hire from their own intern pool.
Fundamentals of Engineering exam
One sitting
The first national engineering exam, usually taken in your final year. It makes you an engineer in training.
First job, then optional licensure
4 years after graduation
Four years of supervised experience and the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam make you a licensed Professional Engineer.
Calculus
Fluid flow through rock is calculus. There is no way around it.
Physics
Pressure, temperature and forces underground, every day.
Chemistry
Hydrocarbons, drilling fluids and what happens when you pump acid into a formation.
Computer science
Modern reservoir work is modeling and data. Learning to code early pays off.
Most petroleum engineers work their whole career without a state license, because engineers employed by a company doing its own work usually fall under an exemption in state law. Licensure still exists and still matters: the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying runs a petroleum version of the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam, and a Professional Engineer license lets you sign and seal work, consult independently and testify as an expert. It takes the first national exam, four years of supervised experience, and the second exam at a fee of $425.
Texas A&M University
Its petroleum engineering department says it ranks first among undergraduate programs in the field, with about 477 undergraduates.
Other oil state universities
Accredited programs cluster in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Alaska, near the basins that hire.
Chemical or mechanical engineering
A safer degree if you are unsure. Both get hired in oil and gas, and both transfer out of it easily.
Society of Petroleum Engineers student chapters
On most campuses. They run scholarships, paper contests and the contacts that turn into internships.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Drilling engineer
Plan and supervise the well being drilled. The most field-based and the most urgent.
Reservoir engineer
Model how much is down there and how fast it can be produced. Heavy on math and software.
Production engineer
Keep existing wells flowing and fix the ones that stop. Steady work even in a downturn.
Completions and hydraulic fracturing
Design how the rock is opened up. The core skill behind United States shale.
Carbon storage and geothermal
The same subsurface skills applied to storing carbon dioxide or producing heat. The exit ramp a lot of engineers are taking.
Python or another programming language
Reservoir and production teams now run on scripts and data, not spreadsheets alone.
Willingness to relocate
The jobs are where the rock is: west Texas, North Dakota, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, overseas.
A summer on a rig or in a field office
Nothing on a resume beats having stood next to the equipment.
A second language
The industry is global. Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese all open doors.
This career pays more than almost any other bachelor's degree, and it hires and fires with the oil price. Graduating in a good year can mean several offers; graduating two years later can mean none. Engineers who last either move between drilling, production and reservoir work as demand shifts, or keep skills that transfer to geothermal, carbon storage, water or chemical plants. Plan for that from the start rather than being surprised by it.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mostly an office, more than teenagers expect. Reading data from wells that ran overnight, running models of how a reservoir will behave, writing the program for the next well, and arguing about cost with geologists and drilling contractors. Phone calls with the field when something downhole goes wrong, which it does. Some roles rotate out to a rig or a field office for a week or two at a time, and offshore roles run fixed rotations such as two weeks on and two weeks off.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Energy Information Administration reports that the United States produced about 21.91 million barrels a day in 2023, roughly 22 percent of world production, more than any other country. That is the reason these jobs exist at home rather than only overseas.
The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying offers more than 20 different Principles and Practice of Engineering exams, and petroleum is one of them. The exam fee is $425, paid on top of whatever your state board charges.
Texas A&M University, which says it ranks first among undergraduate petroleum engineering programs, enrolls about 477 undergraduates in the whole department. Compare that to thousands in mechanical engineering at the same school. It is a small field with a tight network.
A large part of a petroleum engineer's pay is an annual bonus tied to company results, which move with the price of a barrel. Two engineers doing identical work can take home very different amounts in different years.
Last checked September 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.