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 59 Industrial Plant Engineer job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 2994 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 $93,339.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $95,255.

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 $81,426.

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	67.97%
Master's Degree	7.18%
Doctoral Degree	0.9%
Other	12.56%

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	22.25%
3 to 5 years	57.78%
6 to 8 years	12.04%
9+ years	7.93%

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 (54.31%)
Communication (43.79%)
Management (39.35%)
Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (36.07%)
Problem Solving (33.87%)
Writing (21.91%)
Leadership (20.67%)
Budgeting (20.21%)
Planning (19.81%)
Analytical Skills (18.07%)

Defining Skills

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

Mechanical Engineering (21.81%)
Project Management (41.97%)

Necessary Skills

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

Equipment Maintenance (17%)
Project Engineering (13.06%)
Project Implementation (13.29%)
Accounting (16.07%)
Cost Control (15.24%)
Electrical Engineering (10.36%)
Continuous Improvement Process (14.45%)
AutoCAD (9.61%)
Automation (4.8%)
Absorption Refrigeration (11.22%)
Engineering Support (18.06%)
Regulatory Compliance (18.17%)
Boilers (12.24%)
Technical Support (17.3%)
Hazard Analysis And Critical Control Points (HACCP) (15.58%)
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (11.64%)
ASME Boiler And Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) (16.22%)
Good Manufacturing Practices (19.37%)
Food Safety And Sanitation (20.76%)
Economics (15.02%)
Process Engineering (6.94%)
HVAC (16.97%)
Facility Operations (15.43%)
Chemical Engineering (7.77%)
Purchasing (18.99%)
Programmable Logic Controllers (10.44%)
Procurement (5.22%)
Machinery (9.76%)
Turbines (3.53%)
Industrial Engineering (11.6%)
Programmable Logic Controllers Programming (8%)
Lean Manufacturing (7.85%)
Preventive Maintenance (10.4%)
Microsoft Project (16.29%)
New Product Development (4.47%)
Wastewater (16.74%)
Process Improvement (10.02%)
Root Cause Analysis (10.66%)
Safety Training (15.77%)
Environment Health And Safety (6.91%)
Commissioning (5.67%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

Optical Test Equipment (3.72%)
Optical Power Meters (3.72%)
Fiber Light Identifiers (3.72%)

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.

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 (385)
The Judge Group (158)
Spectrum (111)
Prime Healthcare Services (63)
Kaiser Permanente (42)
Actalent (30)
Disability Solutions (30)
JBS Usa (26)
Smithfield Foods (26)
Calpine (22)

North Carolina

The Judge Group (10)
Spectrum (8)
Biogen (4)
Smithfield Foods (4)
Cheesecake Factory (3)
Novant Health (2)
Amgen (2)
Actalent (1)
Pfizer (1)
JBS Usa (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!

Industrial 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