Mechanical Engineers

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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
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

21% (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.
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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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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

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 2,681 votes

37% 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 21% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Mechanical 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

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Mechanical Engineers was $102,320 ($49 per hour).

The median annual wage for Mechanical Engineers was 106.7% 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 'Mechanical Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 9.1% 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

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 286,760 people employed as 'Mechanical Engineers' within the United States.

This represents around 0.19% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 537 people are employed as 'Mechanical Engineers'.

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What people are saying (49)

Leave a comment
RP (Low)
08 Apr 2025 20:44
I'm a mech eng, and IAs can't actually do a lot of stuff we do.
Jacob (No chance)
04 Nov 2025 19:52
There is no way AI can implement complex solutions without human insight. AI can know about Structural Integrity, Dynamics, Thermodynamics and Differential Equations but it cannot meaningfully create necessary solutions because the algorithms aren’t designed to problem solve, they’re designed to give the most appropriate answer.
THOMAS TAN (No chance)
04 Oct 2025 03:31
Mechanical Engineers or Design engineers still require a human touch and creativity on design.
Anirudh (Low)
19 Mar 2025 03:30
You need someone to make robots for robots to replace them.
Raúl (No chance)
02 Jul 2024 06:39
I think it has no chance because cars can have rust or other problems a robot can't understand and deal whit them.
Matthew L (Low)
05 Jun 2025 13:54
As AI-aided machines replace human workers (e.g. Spot), they will need mechanical engineers to oversee them.
b (Low)
21 Aug 2023 13:54
because we make the robot
Zak Cullen (Low)
10 Jun 2025 23:57
depends a lot on real world decision making, value judgements/deciding what you believe is important to prioritise and management
Valentina C (Low)
25 Feb 2025 15:03
They prob wont take the job cs you need to see the machines, scan them to find the mistakes, and be reallly specialized on that area to find them, but its still very possible to do it. Im scared.
Congo (No chance)
16 Jun 2024 21:08
Simply in this area of engineering there is no chance of robot or AI taking it. Maybe in the long run yes, but there is still a pretty long way of developing AI to substitute a mechanical engineer, for now and 1 or 2 decades is impossible. Maybe in the third decade or fourth but with a lot of funding and a lot of training. Because you need to think that to be able to make an AI/robot that can surpass or substitute a human it will need to be only focused on this area, not pretty cost-effective, for the AI industries.
Burke (No chance)
13 Feb 2024 05:13
Mechanical Engineering, like all disciplines of engineering, requires the ability to make difficult ethical decisions regarding systems that affect all of society. This is something that not even the most advanced generalized AI of the future is capable of doing.

Engineering is also a profession, which means that its members set the standards for who can be called an engineer and take responsibility for their decisions. AI cannot make decisions in light of the weight of their actions. It is a tool, not a person, which ultimately undermines any semblance of accountability that is necessary for engineering to be a respectable and societally beneficial profession.
Michal (No chance)
09 Nov 2023 19:28
I believe mechanical engineering to be far too interdisciplinary (design, manufacturing, economics) to be fully automated a whole. I see AI taking over or speeding up certain specific tasks that mechanical engineers are burdened with, never their entire role.
Arthur Schroeder (No chance)
12 Sep 2024 02:42
It’s a very hard job and very complicated and I don’t think robots are automating that any time soon…
John F. Sutton (Low)
23 Oct 2023 18:16
This is a sometimes tough job and would be hard to automate for good reason such as:

1. Fixing stuff, this is complicated as it could literally be anything that could be broken about something.
2. Complexity, the more complex a job is, the more unlikely this job will be taken, this job is hard and absurdly complex sometimes.
3. Problems, this job can cause lots of issues with AI and it is the communication and bugs/viruses that could occur, the cost of these robots would be nuts and it would be hard to afford these machines.
4. Design, AI is a complex work of coding, there is one problem, how would they make the design of there robots that won't screw up how they work, they have to be just right to mimic a person and that would be hard to do.
Cyril (Moderate)
06 May 2023 06:35
As I said. It will certainly take over some tasks that are simple. So it reduce the need for so many ppl, but still the engineers are needed to decide what to do, or to revise AIs work
George Smiley (Moderate)
21 Feb 2023 11:53
Speaking from the point of view of a simulations engineer who build mathematical models using finite element analysis, I think automation will at first assist simulations engineers but will eventually replace them as it learns best practices for how to overcome convergence issues or nonsensical results.
Gavin
03 Jul 2024 01:08
I think ai will eventually replace parts of every profession but there are many there are things that just can’t be taught to something that cannot feel. It’s impossible to know what pain is if you’ve never experienced it. It’s impossible to understand the feelings of others if you have never felt. It’s impossible to know how to make someone’s life easier if you have no life.

Imagine you live your life in black and white from the moment you’re born to the time you’re 16. During this time you’re taught everything there is to know about color. You could talk about color for hours yet you still wouldn’t truly understand what color is until you actually see it. Now imagine that this is a friend of yours and you’re trying to explain the color yellow to them. You might tell them that yellow is a sunny day and energy or electricity, that it’s happiness or something else that you associate with the color yellow. Your friend will most likely not think of sunny days and electricity being similar in anyway and probably be very confused. Your friend represents ai and its ability to understand human wants, needs, and the way people live their lives. Making these three things easier to access or do are one of the main purposes of this job. Also there’s the whole ethical debate because it’s set to be as productive as it can, and eventually humanity gets in the way of that and it has to get rid of us
Sam (No chance)
03 Feb 2023 01:04
People that build and create won't be replaced by AI. Chat GPT said it itself that it simply doesn't have the creativity of a human.
John (In college and worked in some factorys) (Low)
18 Nov 2024 15:36
I think some mechanical engineers will get replaced by the gain in efficiency that other engineers get form AI, a total AI/Robot taking of the job is not in the foreseeable future.
Gavin (No chance)
02 Jul 2024 22:38
Artificial intelligence does not have the creativity needed or the ability to fully understand some of the problems people go through throughout the world.
dhaarini (Uncertain)
10 Sep 2023 06:44
no trained machine has ever come too close to designing any whole equipment. but certainly, I feel there are specific jobs that could be automated like pressure, stress, strain detection and analysis
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Job description

Perform engineering duties in planning and designing tools, engines, machines, and other mechanically functioning equipment. Oversee installation, operation, maintenance, and repair of equipment such as centralized heat, gas, water, and steam systems.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2141.00