Agricultural Engineers

High pay & lowrisk
Minimal Risk
Low High

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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
6.5/10
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

19% (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.
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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.
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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.
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Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Show 4 more strengths

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.
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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.
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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.
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Education and training expertise

Quite important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
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What users think

Based on 106 votes

38% 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 19% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

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

View sentiment trend

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Agricultural Engineers was $84,630 ($41 per hour).

The median annual wage for Agricultural Engineers was 71.0% 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

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Agricultural Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 5.9% 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

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 1,680 people employed as 'Agricultural Engineers' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 91 thousand people are employed as 'Agricultural Engineers'.

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What people are saying (4)

Arpita (No chance)
18 Nov 2023 07:52
I think this profession replaced by robot or AI i do not think ,because a farmer who connect with soil and understand then he grow crop
I think agriculture engineer will be good job in future
BHJ (No chance)
18 Jan 2021 02:33
I suppose no engineering will be replaced by robots, as the purpose is to design new technology and methods. We can let some robots make a farmers job in which they could get injured or in cases is a repetitive. About our future, if we continue unbalancing the global climate, we will have to use always greenhouses to harvest at any time of the year. Now those greenhouses have to be designed not only by civil engineers but agricultural engineers who know more about plants, soil and environment.
Tânia (Moderate)
18 Jun 2020 01:32
I loved this site! Nice to see professions that will disappear due robots, I always believed about it and this website proved my thoughts! People still don't believe that robots will be used a lot and I keep saying to then; "if your work is to fill a excel by hand , you will be replaced by a robot /programing" and they glance at me angry/disbelief. Hope they try this site and start to believe in my argument!
Mohamed Ismail El-Najjar (Moderate)
30 May 2020 20:01
Already we have Robots like these now in Japan and China
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Job description

Apply knowledge of engineering technology and biological science to agricultural problems concerned with power and machinery, electrification, structures, soil and water conservation, and processing of agricultural products.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2021.00