It is important to know your career prospects when deciding on your career. So ICE has put together some questions that we think you will want to know the answer to.
How much would I get paid?
Civil engineers can earn anywhere between £20,000 and £80,000. Imagine that! To earn £80,000, you would have to work hard and gain a lot of experience but it is possible as a civil engineer!
You salary is likely to start around £20,000 and increase as you gain more experience and become professionally qualified.
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Can I work abroad?
There are projects all over the world that need civil engineers to work on them. For example, the stadiums for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa are designed and built by civil engineers.
Projects abroad aren’t all well known. There are some projects that work with small rural villages to make sure that they have some of the things that we take for granted like fresh drinking water. Civil engineers work to ensure that countries less fortunate than us have a better quality of life. This can be as simple as building a bridge to connect two villages that otherwise would have been separated forever.
ICE can help you become a professionally qualified civil engineer which is a highly recognised qualification around the world!
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Do civil engineers work on site all the time?
No. As a civil engineer you will spend some of your time in an office, working with clients, designing, modeling and problem solving. Only a portion of your time is spent on site.
It is important that civil engineers check the work that is being done and that everything is going according to the plan and the budget laid out at the beginning of the project.
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Can my careers advisor help me?
The careers advisor or your teacher at your school should be able to offer you more advice on civil engineering, what it involves and how to become one.
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What are the different types of civil engineering?
There are lots of different areas that you can go into as a civil engineer. Below are few areas you can specialise within the profession.
- Coastal –Protect our beaches and coastal areas against flooding and erosion
- Earthquake – Test structures to make sure that they can withstand earthquakes and are designed well to stop them collapsing
- Environmental – Finding new ways to protect our environment and work on wind farms, water purification, waste water treatment and solid waste treatment, air pollution, and hazardous waste management
- Structural –Design and build buildings, bridges, towers, flyovers, tunnels, as well as off shore structures like oil and gas fields in the sea
- Transport – Ensure people and products move around the country quickly and safely. This could mean working on roads, canals, highways, rail systems, airports, and ports
- Urban - Working in cities. Mainly to design, construct, and maintain the roads, sidewalks, water supply networks, sewers, street lighting, municipal solid waste management and disposal, storage depots for various bulk materials used for maintenance and public works (salt, sand, etc), public parks and bicycle paths
- Water resources – Design and construct our water resources such as pipelines, water distribution systems, drainage facilities (including bridges, dams, channels, culverts, levees, storm sewers), and canals. Otherwise we will not have water when and where we need it
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How do I become an ICE member?
Please visit ICE routes to membership for further explanation on how to become a civil engineer.
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