Nuclear Engineers

High pay & lowrisk Lowest risk
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
6.7/10
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

10% (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

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

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

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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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
Show 4 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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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 187 votes

21% 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 10% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Nuclear 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 Nuclear Engineers was $127,520 ($61 per hour).

The median annual wage for Nuclear Engineers was 157.6% 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

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Nuclear Engineers' job openings is expected to decline 1.1% 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

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 14,740 people employed as 'Nuclear Engineers' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 10 thousand people are employed as 'Nuclear Engineers'.

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What people are saying (7)

Leave a comment
Lucas Macdonald (No chance)
18 Mar 2026 16:13
Reactors need to be as stable as possible
john (No chance)
28 Jul 2025 13:25
too high stakes to have ai
Ameyaa Bajaj (Low)
12 Jan 2025 16:23
Its a job in which even a small mistake can lead to big accidents so if a robot is programmed incorrectly big accidents might happen
j (No chance)
13 Jun 2024 01:27
Nuclear engineers are required to develope nuclear fusion, and if AI gets a single thing about a nuclear reaction wrong the whole thing will go up in flames.
Matt
20 May 2024 00:28
KABOOM!
Billy Auger (Low)
03 Apr 2024 15:08
Would people really trust a robot to run a nuclear reactor? I don't think so.
Husain Lokhandwala (No chance)
22 Dec 2020 03:50
No chance because nuclear engineers have ideas and theory, and are creative, which robots cannot use ideas and theory for experiments very likely, and even less likely to be able to be creative. Robots only can do continuous things, and nuclear engineers do a variety of tasks.
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Job description

Conduct research on nuclear engineering projects or apply principles and theory of nuclear science to problems concerned with release, control, and use of nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal.

O*NET-SOC code: 17-2161.00