Industrial Plant Engineer
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
An Industrial Plant Engineer plans, designs, installs, and maintains industrial production plant facilities. Estimates production costs and performs feasibility studies in order to advise management on investment in new plants.
Job Outlook
There were 58 Industrial Plant Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 2987 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Industrial Engineer industry, which includes the Industrial Plant Engineer career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:
Salary
Many new Industrial Plant Engineer jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.
National
The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $93,761.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $100,594.
Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Industrial Plant Engineer postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $83,010.
Education and Experience
Posted Industrial Plant Engineer jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.
| Education Level | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Associate's Degree | 0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 68.23% |
| Master's Degree | 6.83% |
| Doctoral Degree | 0.97% |
| Other | 12.39% |
Posted Industrial Plant Engineer jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Years of Experience | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 years | 22.27% |
| 3 to 5 years | 57.5% |
| 6 to 8 years | 11.92% |
| 9+ years | 8.31% |
Skills
Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Industrial Plant Engineer positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.
Baseline Skills
A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.
- Operations (54.37%)
- Communication (43.92%)
- Management (39.4%)
- Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (35.62%)
- Problem Solving (33.41%)
- Writing (21.96%)
- Leadership (20.96%)
- Planning (19.99%)
- Budgeting (19.72%)
- Analytical Skills (17.38%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Mechanical Engineering (21.78%)
- Project Management (41.79%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Equipment Maintenance (16.64%)
- Project Engineering (13.18%)
- Project Implementation (13.29%)
- Accounting (15.58%)
- Cost Control (14.61%)
- Electrical Engineering (10.21%)
- Continuous Improvement Process (14.53%)
- AutoCAD (9.5%)
- Automation (4.43%)
- Absorption Refrigeration (11.45%)
- Engineering Support (17.87%)
- Regulatory Compliance (17.76%)
- Boilers (11.9%)
- Technical Support (16.79%)
- Hazard Analysis And Critical Control Points (HACCP) (14.98%)
- Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (11.98%)
- ASME Boiler And Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) (15.81%)
- Good Manufacturing Practices (18.7%)
- Food Safety And Sanitation (19.83%)
- Economics (14.61%)
- Process Engineering (7.32%)
- HVAC (16.64%)
- Facility Operations (14.65%)
- Chemical Engineering (7.81%)
- Purchasing (17.99%)
- Programmable Logic Controllers (9.76%)
- Procurement (5.11%)
- Machinery (9.88%)
- Turbines (3.45%)
- Industrial Engineering (11.9%)
- Programmable Logic Controllers Programming (7.21%)
- Lean Manufacturing (8.07%)
- Preventive Maintenance (10.33%)
- Microsoft Project (15.62%)
- New Product Development (4.17%)
- Wastewater (15.92%)
- Process Improvement (10.29%)
- Root Cause Analysis (11.15%)
- Safety Training (15.02%)
- Environment Health And Safety (7.44%)
- Commissioning (5.78%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- Optical Test Equipment (3.79%)
- Optical Power Meters (3.79%)
- Fiber Light Identifiers (3.79%)
Alternative Job Titles
Sometimes employers post jobs with Industrial Plant Engineer skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:
- Plant Engineer
- Project Engineer
- Power Plant Engineer
- ISP Engineer
- Engineer
- Outside Plant Engineer
- Packaging Engineer
- Plant Process Engineer
- Plant Operations Engineer
- Engineering Intern
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.
- Industrial Engineer (General)
- Engineering Manager (General)
- Engineering Project Manager
- General Engineering Technician / Technologist
- Facilities Engineering Manager
- Mechanical Project Engineer
Common Employers
Here are the employers that have posted the most Industrial Plant Engineer jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.
United States
- Stratas Foods (367)
- The Judge Group (162)
- Spectrum (113)
- Prime Healthcare Services (61)
- Kaiser Permanente (41)
- Actalent (38)
- JBS Usa (24)
- Smithfield Foods (24)
- Calpine (23)
- Comtech Ef Data (20)
North Carolina
- The Judge Group (10)
- Spectrum (8)
- Cheesecake Factory (4)
- Biogen (3)
- Smithfield Foods (3)
- Amgen (2)
- Actalent (1)
- Roche (1)
- Pfizer (1)
- Novant Health (1)
NC State Programs Relevant to this Career
If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!
All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.