Aerospace Engineer

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

An Aerospace Engineer designs aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft using knowledge of engineering and physics, and tests prototypes to see if they work according to design. May specialize in aeronautical design and work with airplanes and helicopters, or specialize in astronautical design and work with vehicles used in outer space. May specialize in a particular area of design, such as aerodynamic flow or navigation.

Job Outlook

There were 251 Aerospace Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 12385 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Aerospace Engineer industry, which includes the Aerospace Engineer career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:

Salary

Many new Aerospace 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 $100,621.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $92,048.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Aerospace Engineer postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $78,662.

Education and Experience

Posted Aerospace 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	67.7%
Master's Degree	37.8%
Doctoral Degree	19.05%
Other	5.89%

Posted Aerospace 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	23.99%
3 to 5 years	33.23%
6 to 8 years	13.72%
9+ years	29.07%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Aerospace 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.

Communication (35.75%)
Operations (28.46%)
Management (26.27%)
Leadership (24.42%)
Planning (20.98%)
Problem Solving (18.02%)
Mathematics (17.24%)
Research (16.48%)
Coordinating (14.11%)
Writing (12.65%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

Flight Testing (19.25%)
Aerospace Engineering (30.14%)
Propulsion (13.69%)
Officer Training (0.1%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

Avionics (17.17%)
Electrical Engineering (13.43%)
Continuous Improvement Process (5.91%)
Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) (5.9%)
Computer Science (14.17%)
Aircraft Maintenance (2.86%)
Systems Engineering (25.89%)
MATLAB (16.86%)
Physics (18.49%)
Electronics (6.6%)
Test Planning (13.85%)
Python (Programming Language) (14.74%)
Project Management (16.6%)
Mechanical Engineering (18.04%)
Spacecraft (14.94%)
Simulations (11.72%)
Federal Aviation Administration (13.26%)
Export Control (12.15%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

Guidance Navigation And Control Systems (5.16%)
Aerodynamics (6.64%)

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.

Guidance Navigation And Control Systems (9.65%)
Aerodynamics (12.41%)
Aerospace Engineering (56.34%)
Propulsion (25.59%)
Flight Testing (35.98%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Aerospace Engineer skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

Propulsion Engineer
Flight Test Engineer
Certification Engineer
GNC Engineer
Aerospace Systems Engineer
Avionics Systems Engineer
Spacecraft Engineer
Payload Engineer
Avionics Engineer

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.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Aerospace Engineer jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

Raytheon Technologies (515)
Blue Origin (504)
Northrop Grumman (394)
Boeing (332)
United States Department of Defense (275)
Lockheed Martin (212)
Gulfstream Aerospace (183)
SpaceX (180)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (165)
General Atomics (154)

North Carolina

Honda (26)
American Honda Motor Company (19)
Raytheon Technologies (12)
United States Department of Defense (10)
Guilford Technical Community College (8)
American Honda Finance Corporation (8)
Tekskills (8)
Actalent (6)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (4)
Corvid Technologies (4)

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!

Aerospace Engineering Master's Degrees

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.

Engineering