Aerospace Engineers

Top scored Trending
Minimal Risk
Low High

Alternative careers

Related career paths that build on similar skills and experience

Mechanical Engineers
21% automation risk | Low Risk
Higher growth More jobs
View career
Why it fits

Applies design, materials, stress, thermal, manufacturing, and testing knowledge beyond aerospace products.

Architectural and Engineering Managers
11% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Pays better More jobs
0.8 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Uses engineering judgment, project reviews, technical standards, budgets, and team coordination.

Computer Hardware Engineers
12% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Pays better
0.6 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Fits aerospace engineers with avionics, embedded systems, electronics, and hardware integration experience.

Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary
10% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth
2.1 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Transfers aerospace domain expertise into engineering instruction, labs, research support, and student guidance.

Compare this job with others
or search for another job
Share your results with friends and family.

Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
7.9/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

12% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Thinking creatively

Very important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
Jobs that also use this strength

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
Jobs that also use this strength

Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
Jobs that also use this strength

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
Jobs that also use this strength

Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
Jobs that also use this strength
Show 5 more strengths

Instructing

Quite important
Why this matters
Teaching or coaching others—explaining steps, giving feedback, and adapting to different learners so they can do the work safely and correctly.
Jobs that also use this strength

Communicating with people outside the organization

Quite important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
Jobs that also use this strength

Consulting and advising others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide guidance and expert advice to managers or teams on technical, system, or process decisions—explaining options, tradeoffs, and recommended actions.
Jobs that also use this strength

Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
Jobs that also use this strength

Operations analysis

Quite important
Why this matters
Figure out what people need and what a product must do, then translate those requirements into a workable design.
Jobs that also use this strength

What users think

Based on 1,114 votes

26% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 12% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Aerospace Engineers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Aerospace Engineers was $134,830 ($65 per hour).

The median annual wage for Aerospace Engineers was 172.4% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Very fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Aerospace Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 6.1% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 68,440 people employed as 'Aerospace Engineers' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 2 thousand people are employed as 'Aerospace Engineers'.

People also viewed

Computer Programmers Mechanical Engineers Lawyers Electrical Engineers Civil Engineers

What people are saying (35)

Leave a comment
wefjiboeu (No chance)
03 Dec 2024 15:13
The engineering of this kind of stuff requires sudden changes and the human mind
Kauã (No chance)
17 Mar 2023 04:55
No way people trust building ROCKETS to A.I.S
Alex (Low)
18 Aug 2025 13:16
Aerospace engineering requires human creativity that AI simply lacks
James (No chance)
25 Jun 2023 10:03
Needs innovation and creativity
singe rapide
08 Apr 2025 21:29
So ?
katie
04 Jan 2021 17:02
Clever minds. Aerospace engineers need to come up with clever solutions, which robots cannot (at least with today foreseen technology). Think about all different trade studies which were sometimes counter intuitive and required completely surprising and innovative solutions. This would drive robots crazy, right? Teamwork. Aerospace engineers are required to help each other during product creations, which robots can not do properly. Either you guided someone younger, or you gave a hand on CAD or FEA software tips to a bloke close to retirement. Most of the time you did not care if this person is different skin colour, religion, gender or beliefs. Well this pays off in the end. No tight space requirement. Unless you are working in a design or manufacturing sweat shop, aerospace engineers do not require squeezing into small spaces which is strong point of robotics. Negotiation. Aerospace design requires negotiation skills, robots cannot do this properly. Think about all interface and supplier and customer meetings you have ever been to. Or even meetings with different functions like manufacturing and maybe stress analysis.
Nirmal Teja (No chance)
30 Mar 2024 17:05
It's almost impossible to any type of artificial intelligence to think out of the box as a human thoughts go there is no limit to human creativity but the artificial intelligence is limited even after decades..
L.M. (No chance)
15 Apr 2023 18:46
the risk of even a slight failure could prevent an ai that could replace this job from ever leaving development
duck (Uncertain)
10 Apr 2023 18:38
Engineering is a difficult job and with the precision of present machines, they could make things more accurate than human hands. The only downside is a machine/robot can't make full decisions, Humans are able to go through options and choose the best one based on circumstance. Robots can't do that... yet
Bagle
21 May 2024 22:25
pls don't tel me me future profssion will b replaced by AI
Bret (Low)
28 Jul 2021 02:53
It's a complex job. Many constraints need to be accounted for. A computer just may not be as good at it.
N (Small Chance)
28 May 2021 14:17
I personally do not believe that rocket scientists/aerospace engineers will be overthrown by AI/robots because it requires complex math, complex designing, and building. I do understand that AI will improve over the years, but I don't see robots doing a job like this. Though I do see them helping around. This scares me as they could probably move up a position.
Nicolas (No chance)
29 Apr 2021 22:06
aerospace engineering is an area that needs innovation and creativity, always discovering new things and not always doing the same task, testing new materials and things that have never been used are constant tasks, etc.
Jacob (Low)
07 Apr 2020 11:00
cos a robot can't get right into the small parts of a helicopter (for example), and if it could it would take way to long to program
Josh (Low)
11 Mar 2026 13:53
AI will speed up and will definitely automate parts of the job but there are to many safety regulations and lot of hands on work that needs human approval and judgement for it to be fully automated and replaced any time soon.
Stevie (No chance)
04 Mar 2026 03:59
Because aerospace engineering is safety critical in all regards and AI cannot be trusted with such things
A (Moderate)
20 Nov 2025 12:05
AI is still advancing at an alarming rate and is even capable of performing very complex mathematical calculations pertaining to the field compared to 2 years ago.

Whilst right now it can compare your suggestions on a particular design and leave you to figure out the best course of action, that itself might change in the future given how fast its reasoning is improving
High school freshmen 10000038 (Uncertain)
13 Nov 2025 20:50
The robots might be able to design the best aircraft but they can’t account for ersonal flare and other human factors like tailoring to a certain government officials tastes so you get chosen.
Sawle (Uncertain)
23 Feb 2023 13:47
It really depends on how we see it, if we as engineers use AI to our advantage and adapt it's positives we can easily stay in the field, but if we step aside then you know what will happen eventually.
World now is not waiting for us to improve it WILL improve.
Cody T. (Low)
09 Sep 2020 19:27
I just don't think it is realistic to replace this job within the next 20 years. It seems it take at least a little longer, as this job requires extremely difficult math, and hands on experience engineering. It also requires the capable human mind. Therefore it is unlikely that this job is replaced soon.
Julien (Low)
09 Sep 2020 18:41
Aerospace Engineers will not be replaced any time soon because robots and AI are not technologically advanced yet.
Bobby (Low)
26 Apr 2020 19:17
I know this can be said about most jobs, but I think Artificial Intelligence will be used as a tool instead of a replacement.
Leave a reply about this occupation
0/8000

Job description

Perform engineering duties in designing, constructing, and testing aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. May conduct basic and applied research to evaluate adaptability of materials and equipment to aircraft design and manufacture. May recommend improvements in testing equipment and techniques.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2011.00