Civil Engineers
What the pay figures show
- A job board will not tell you this about civil engineers. The best headline number is California, at $122,500. State taxes differ, so Alaska leaves you more. Prices differ too, so Louisiana leaves you better off again — $90,769 once levelled out. Moving for the biggest salary can leave you worse off.
- Wage data for civil engineers places California first at $122,500. That position is not robust: state income tax alone reorders it to Alaska, and regional price parity reorders it again to Louisiana at $90,769. Because published comparisons almost universally stop at the nominal median, the state that appears best for this occupation is routinely not the state where a worker's income goes furthest.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$100,840
People doing it
367,840
Highest paid
$122,500
CA
Best off, really
$90,769
LA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$68,240
Highest tenth
$163,220
Lowest, really
$63,930
HI
States with data
51
National average
$108,670
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.34%
LA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Pay for this job is fairly steady around the country. Count tax and local prices and the states bunch closer still, from $63,930 to $90,769. For work like this, where you live changes your life more than it changes your pay.
- Roughly 367,840 people hold this job nationally, earning $100,840 in the middle. A solid, ordinary-sized job.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $100,840. Nothing is missing.
- Geographic dispersion in civil engineers is moderate by national standards. Tax and price adjustment compress the distribution further, to a real range of $63,930 through $90,769. Where nominal spread is this contained, relocation decisions in the occupation turn on non-wage factors, because the wage differential does not survive the adjustments in a form large enough to drive them.
- 367,840 are employed nationally in civil engineers, placing it well inside the reported range without approaching the highest-headcount occupations.
- Coverage for civil engineers is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Civil Engineers
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $68,240 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $100,840 |
| Top tenth earn over | $163,220 |
| This salary | $100,840 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Civil Engineers
The national median for this job
$100,840around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $68,240 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $100,840 |
| Top tenth | $163,220 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Civil Engineers, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Georgia · $84,240 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $122,500 |
| Spread | $38,260 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $96,860 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $99,676 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| LA | $105,380 | $80,190 | $90,769 |
| SD | $98,700 | $78,265 | $88,842 |
| AK | $114,730 | $89,543 | $88,033 |
| ND | $98,190 | $77,251 | $87,219 |
| NM | $103,900 | $78,163 | $86,477 |
| MS | $100,170 | $75,385 | $86,359 |
| NE | $103,150 | $77,406 | $85,649 |
| NV | $104,310 | $82,212 | $84,772 |
| KY | $100,930 | $76,419 | $84,471 |
| OK | $98,760 | $74,364 | $84,231 |
| IA | $96,430 | $73,616 | $82,932 |
| AL | $99,010 | $74,346 | $82,634 |
| TN | $95,910 | $76,303 | $82,476 |
| SC | $101,600 | $75,978 | $81,542 |
| IN | $98,270 | $75,093 | $81,460 |
| OH | $96,220 | $74,591 | $81,243 |
| NC | $100,730 | $76,183 | $80,926 |
| ID | $98,030 | $73,452 | $80,341 |
| KS | $96,880 | $71,868 | $79,884 |
| WY | $90,590 | $72,560 | $79,870 |
| WA | $110,000 | $86,215 | $79,415 |
| TX | $96,860 | $76,971 | $79,209 |
| MT | $93,070 | $70,407 | $78,019 |
| CA | $122,500 | $87,694 | $77,894 |
| MO | $92,750 | $70,658 | $77,001 |
| PA | $97,850 | $74,663 | $76,578 |
| WI | $94,600 | $71,220 | $76,501 |
| UT | $96,830 | $72,641 | $76,463 |
| AR | $85,020 | $65,954 | $76,241 |
| MN | $101,480 | $74,844 | $76,048 |
| FL | $98,570 | $78,174 | $75,565 |
| CO | $101,420 | $76,425 | $75,383 |
| IL | $99,760 | $74,218 | $75,077 |
| WV | $86,930 | $66,893 | $74,514 |
| DE | $100,220 | $73,951 | $74,508 |
| ME | $97,820 | $72,294 | $74,456 |
| VT | $95,600 | $71,885 | $74,389 |
| NH | $98,710 | $78,272 | $74,301 |
| MI | $92,100 | $69,959 | $74,279 |
| RI | $99,300 | $75,323 | $74,275 |
| CT | $103,150 | $76,457 | $73,737 |
| MA | $106,730 | $78,898 | $72,893 |
| MD | $100,680 | $75,164 | $72,297 |
| VA | $97,120 | $72,330 | $71,792 |
| NJ | $104,660 | $77,981 | $71,619 |
| NY | $103,760 | $76,744 | $71,306 |
| OR | $105,250 | $74,214 | $70,868 |
| AZ | $89,660 | $70,067 | $69,301 |
| DC | $103,880 | $76,048 | $68,633 |
| GA | $84,240 | $64,488 | $66,689 |
| HI | $94,280 | $69,434 | $63,930 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for civil engineers, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $100,840 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for civil engineers. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Alaska keeps the most at $89,543.
- The price adjustment for civil engineers uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Hawaii anchors the bottom at $63,930. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- All wage figures for civil engineers are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $100,840. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for civil engineers is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Alaska retains the most, $89,543. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for civil engineers deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.