Petroleum Engineer

Work out how to get oil and gas out of rock, safely and cheaply. A national median of $144,910, tied to a price you do not control.

Typical pay: $144,910a year
Time to qualify: 4 to 5 yearsafter high school
Demand: Limited
License needed: Nono license to hold

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Where to study to become a petroleum engineer in the United States

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.

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Quick answers

How much does a petroleum engineer make in the United States?

The median pay is about $144,910 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $81,440 at the lower end to about $253,200 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.

How long does it take to become a petroleum engineer in the United States?

4 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.

What does it cost to become a petroleum engineer?

$32,000 to $65,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.

Do you need a license to work as a petroleum engineer in the United States?

No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.

What is the job outlook for a petroleum engineer in the United States?

Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.

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Petroleum Engineer salary in the United States

What you earn and what it costs to get there.

What petroleum engineers make

Median

$144,910

Bottom tenth

$81,440

Top tenth

$253,200

The 2025 national median is $144,910 a year, and the bottom tenth earn $81,440 or less. Hiring swings with the price of oil.

The bottom quarter

$106,270 a year or less

The 25th percentile of the national wage survey, 2025

Three in four petroleum engineers earn more than that. In a downturn the same graduate may not get an offer at all, which is the honest shape of this career.

The top quarter

$197,920 a year or more

The 75th percentile of the national wage survey, 2025

Base salary is only part of it. Annual bonuses tied to company performance, and field or offshore allowances for rotational schedules, add to what experienced engineers earn.

What it costs to get there

Bachelor's degree, four years: Roughly $11,000 to $16,000 a year in tuition and fees at an in-state public university
Fundamentals of Engineering exam: $225, usually taken in your final year
Principles and Practice of Engineering exam: $400 to the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, years later and only if you want the license
Paid internships: Oil and gas companies pay their summer interns

Roughly, all in

$32,000 to $65,000

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 $400 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 paid, 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.

How the money is structured

Base salary
A salary, reviewed each year.
Annual bonus
Tied to company results, so it rises and falls with the oil price.
Field and offshore allowances
Extra pay for rotations, remote sites and time away from home.
Service company versus operator
Operators own the wells. Service companies are hired to work on them. Both hire and cut with the oil price.
Overtime
Rare for engineers. You are salaried, and the hours during a well operation are long anyway.

How to become a petroleum engineer in the United States

The exact path from high school to qualified.

The path to becoming a petroleum engineer, step by step

One accredited degree, then straight into industry.

1
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Calculus, physics and chemistry, as strong as you can get them. Engineering admission is competitive on grades.
2
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.
3
Internships every summer
This is how many people get a first job. Companies hire from their own intern pool.
4
Fundamentals of Engineering exam
One sitting
The first national engineering exam, usually taken in your final year. It makes you an engineer in training.
5
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.

High school courses that help you become a petroleum 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.

Time and money, at a glance

Years after high school: 4 to work, 8 to be a licensed Professional Engineer
Degree needed: Accredited bachelor's in engineering
Total cost: Roughly $32,000 to $65,000 before aid, in-state
Paid while training?: Only through paid summer internships

A license you often do not need

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, which costs $400 and is given only once a year.

Where people study

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.

What helps you get ahead as a petroleum engineer

Things you don't need, but that help.

Branches of the job

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.

Nice-to-haves

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.

Boom and bust is the whole story

This career has one of the highest medians on this site for a four-year degree, $144,910, 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.

What being a petroleum engineer is really like

Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.

What a petroleum engineer does day to day

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 honest pros and cons of being a petroleum engineer

The good

A national median of $144,910 a year
Only four years of school before real money
Real responsibility young, on equipment worth millions
Skills that travel worldwide

The hard parts

Layoffs follow the oil price, and they are brutal
The work is concentrated in a few states and a few cities
Long hours and time away from home during operations
The industry's future is genuinely uncertain over a 40 year career

Work life

Typical hours: 45 to 55 a week, longer during a well operation
Remote work: Some for office roles, none for field roles
Physical demand: Low in the office, moderate on site
Unionized: No

Similar paths

Things nobody tells you about being a petroleum engineer

Things people don't tell you.

The United States is the biggest oil producer on earth

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 licensing exam is once a year

The petroleum version of the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam is given on a single day each year: 85 questions on a computer at a test center, for $400.

About 1,000 openings a year

Federal projections expect slower than average growth for petroleum engineers from 2025 to 2035, with about 1,000 openings a year across the country.

How a petroleum engineer compares

Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.

More engineering careers in the US

Engineers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in engineering.

Where these numbers come from

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.