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

7.7/10

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.

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

7.7/10

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

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

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.

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Show 3 more strengths

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.

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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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What users think

Based on 470 votes

30% 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 Computer Hardware Engineers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Highly likely

Moderate

Uncertain

Low

No chance

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 Computer Hardware Engineers was $155,020 ($75 per hour).

The median annual wage for Computer Hardware Engineers was 213.2% 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 'Computer Hardware Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 7.3% 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 75,710 people employed as 'Computer Hardware 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 'Computer Hardware Engineers'.

What people are saying (7)

Bob (Low)

06 Jul 2024 19:17

Hardware Engineers take skill and complex learning to do, I don't think ai has the the capacity to do it in this age

N (Uncertain)

12 Jan 2024 07:00

https://www.techspot.com/news/101401-samsung-planning-human-free-fully-automated-fabs-within.html

Nick (No chance)

20 Apr 2023 01:17

Requires hands on testing and complex engineering problems in the real world that can only be interfaced by physical mediums. Needs to account for human error and potential problems in the intended engineering project. Unless you built a robot human that can design PCBs, circuits, programs… AND order those designs from a fab house and handle the monetary and shipping policies, AND then assemble and check for errors…… etc. Like I said before, AI will be very beneficial in the design process for streamlining tasks for the engineer but it can’t replace the engineer. I hope that I’m not wrong in the future.

Chris (Highly likely)

04 Apr 2023 00:42

Most hardware tasks are highly redundant and can easily be evaluated though simple logic and data analysis. Creating databases of past issues and cataloging problems will allow AI within seconds narrow down issues, based on past issues, to a handful of possible problems that AI would provide step by step instructions to fix allowing people with much lower levels of skill to fix. So while AI won't completely replace people, it will reduce knowledge and as a result salaries of people in these fields and will allow off-shoring of an increasing number jobs that are high skilled today.

Rei (Moderate)

20 Apr 2022 14:10

This is about hardware, not the software or the AI. So, the peripheral of the computer, robot with great AI, will likely replace humans. Still, the QC will be handled by humans.

Husain

20 Jan 2021 19:52

This occupation takes IQ and the ability to work in a team, and robots will hog it all up, and maybe listen to their team if the team is lucky. And robots are weak grabbers, so they cannot grab pieces. They don't know what's in them because they can't dig themselves out. Computer hardware engineers use math, problem-solving, curiosity, and science, and robots maybe don't have problem-solving, and you certainly cannot program something to be curious until some year like 2080, which I cannot imagine.

Daniel (No chance)

19 Oct 2020 15:20

I believe humans would never risk computers programming others as if one is wrong, all of them are.

Computer Hardware Engineers

Alternative careers

At a glance

Occupation snapshot

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

Human strengths important in this job

Thinking creatively

Decision-making and problem solving

Coordinating others’ work

Instructing

Communicating with people outside the organization

Consulting and advising others

Active learning

Operations analysis

What users think

What do you think the risk of automation is?

Sentiment

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Wages over time

Growth

Total employment, and estimated job openings

Volume

People also viewed

What people are saying (7)

Job description