Health and Safety Engineers
(Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors)

High pay & lowrisk
Minimal Risk
Low High

Alternative careers

Related career paths that build on similar skills and experience

Human Factors Engineers and Ergonomists
10% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
1.8 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Strong adjacent engineering move using human performance, ergonomics, risk reduction, design, and usability.

Occupational Health and Safety Specialists
19% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
View career
Why it fits

Direct safety-compliance move using hazard analysis, controls, training, audits, investigations, and regulations.

Occupational Health and Safety Technicians
21% automation risk | Low Risk
Higher growth More jobs
View career
Why it fits

Direct field-support move using inspections, sampling, incident records, safety procedures, and compliance checks.

Environmental Engineers
10% automation risk | Minimal Risk
More jobs
1.5 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Plausible environmental safety path using hazards, controls, regulations, reports, risk assessments, and mitigation.

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
7.3/10
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

11% (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.

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

Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
Jobs that also use this strength

Thinking creatively

Quite 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

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

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
Show 5 more strengths

Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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

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

What users think

Based on 47 votes

32% 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 11% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

View sentiment trend

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors was $109,660 ($53 per hour).

The median annual wage for Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors was 121.5% 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 'Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors' job openings is expected to rise 4.4% 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

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 23,220 people employed as 'Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 6 thousand people are employed as 'Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors'.

People also viewed

Mechanical Engineers Electrical Engineers Computer Programmers Chemical Engineers Accountants and Auditors

What people are saying (4)

Lorenz (No chance)
24 Oct 2024 17:12
Creativity and Empathy towards Humans at Risk
Ahmed bin Abdullah abbadi (Highly likely)
18 Mar 2024 06:22
Any business or any startup doing before..a person first thing about risk level , risk factors , analysis. Safe system of work or operation Work employees safety measures policy benefits and services safety person doing important roles in growth companies and environment...
James (Low)
01 Feb 2023 17:35
Significant portions of this job are already automated however, in the short term, where a large number of companies have ad hoc production set ups with older machinery, there is likely a long time as companies start to replace old equipment
yes (Highly likely)
11 Mar 2021 02:02
You don't need a human to do most jobs performed by engineers
Leave a reply about this occupation
0/8000

Job description

Promote worksite or product safety by applying knowledge of industrial processes, mechanics, chemistry, psychology, and industrial health and safety laws. Includes industrial product safety engineers.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2111.00