Industrial Engineers

Trending
Low Risk
Low High

Explore safer careers (5)

Lower estimated automation risk

Quality Control Systems Managers
22% automation risk | Low Risk
Pays better
6.4 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Applies quality systems, process capability, root-cause analysis, audits, SOPs, and metrics.

Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors
11% automation risk | Minimal Risk
16.5 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Uses human factors, hazards, process design, safety controls, standards, and incident prevention.

Manufacturing Engineers
20% automation risk | Low Risk
7.7 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Directly reuses production systems, workflow, tooling, quality, process improvement, and plant constraints.

Management Analysts
19% automation risk | Minimal Risk
More jobs
9.1 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Transfers process studies, workflow redesign, metrics, documentation, and operational recommendations.

Supply Chain Managers
21% automation risk | Low Risk
6.7 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Uses logistics, production planning, inventory, cost, throughput, suppliers, and process improvement.

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

28% (Low Risk)

Low Risk (21-40%): This occupation has a lower risk of full replacement by AI, software, or robotic systems. Some tasks may be automated or assisted, but the role usually still relies on human judgement, communication, responsibility, physical adaptability, or practical decision-making.

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

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

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

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.
Jobs that also use this strength
Show 2 more strengths

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

Education and training expertise

Quite important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
Jobs that also use this strength

What users think

Based on 427 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 28% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Industrial 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 Industrial Engineers was $101,140 ($49 per hour).

The median annual wage for Industrial Engineers was 104.3% 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 'Industrial Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 11.0% 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 greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 350,230 people employed as 'Industrial Engineers' within the United States.

This represents around 0.23% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 440 people are employed as 'Industrial Engineers'.

People also viewed

Mechanical Engineers Computer Programmers Electrical Engineers Civil Engineers Lawyers

What people are saying (11)

Leave a comment
Travis (Low)
09 Apr 2026 01:41
Manufacturing will always require a combination of technology and people and understanding both will always be relevant.
Lenin Castro (Highly likely)
23 Sep 2025 19:19
Industrial Engineer use methodologies that a IA could learn.
WELIVER DE LOS SANTOS (Low)
11 Mar 2024 02:10
Industrial engineers perform management and personnel handling functions that require interaction with staff, and are not repetitive or linear enough for robots to perform them.
Richard Crosss (Moderate)
06 Mar 2024 19:08
IE's often are required to do mundane, repetitive tasks that can be easily automated by AI. AI will also supplement the analysis process allowing IE's to focus on driving continuous improvement instead of wasting time collecting, cleaning, and analyzing data. AI will also also supplement IE's designing and optimizing production systems by analyzing large amounts of data and leveraging standard IE methods to optimize the recommendations that IE's provide to influence the design and business decisions prior to building or installing new equipment and/or processes.
Unbiased (Low)
15 Feb 2023 21:27
Industrial Engineers are one of the most flexible engineers in the engineering field. Because Industrial Engineers are reckoned for their social skills (which is unlikely to be automated soon) compared to other engineering fields they end up in top management.
Far (Uncertain)
30 Dec 2022 12:56
Since we're heading towards significant automation of operational activities, it's likely that the risk of errors or the potential for improvement will be limited. Therefore, industrial engineers might find it challenging to work.
Ahmed (No chance)
10 Jul 2022 20:15
As an industrial engineer, I have seen a lot of software fail to do our job. Of course, AI helps us a lot, but nowadays the world changes every minute.

The constraints or the requirements of industrial engineering cannot be fulfilled by AI at all.
CK
08 Jul 2021 03:45
IEs are the ones who will be automating production using Machine Learning and AI
ken wang (Moderate)
04 Dec 2019 12:17
IE is a technical oriented job, there are standarlize module of those work. So, AI can collect data and use same module to get the job done
Justin Williams
21 Sep 2022 16:05
You clearly lack some information on what industrial engineers do
Dusty
03 Mar 2024 17:05
lol, I hope it is not replaced I am a freshman IE major, and I am writing my comp II project on AI automation of the workforce. (I am using this as one of my sources). This field of work with others like HR and Accounting will have some automation but overall I think we are safe. Better than majoring in English or History.
Leave a reply about this occupation
0/8000

Job description

Design, develop, test, and evaluate integrated systems for managing industrial production processes, including human work factors, quality control, inventory control, logistics and material flow, cost analysis, and production coordination.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2112.00