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Nuclear Engineers

SOC 17-2161 · 2024-2034

Conduct research on nuclear engineering projects or apply principles and theory of nuclear science to problems concerned with release, control, and use of nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California

$177,226per year

Projected openings

730

Projected change

+9.1%

Usually needs

Bachelor's degree

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

1. Science
2. Critical Thinking
3. Reading Comprehension
4. Active Listening
5. Monitoring
6. Judgment and Decision Making

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under

$113,069

A quarter earn under

$139,190

Half earn under

$177,226

Three quarters earn under

$181,328

The highest-paid tenth earn over

$213,555

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.