Occupation / job
Petroleum Engineers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$144,910 puts Petroleum Engineers among the highest medians BLS publishes, roughly 190% above the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Pay at this level always has a gate in front of it: a residency, a bar exam, a clearance, or a decade.
Nationally 18,060 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Petroleum Engineers is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.
Engineering suits people willing to be responsible for something that has to work in the physical world, where the review process exists because the failure mode is not a bug report.
No verified preparation time is on file for Petroleum Engineers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$91,650 separates the bottom quarter of Petroleum Engineers at $106,270 from the top quarter at $197,920. At a 1.9x ratio the midpoint is a weak guide to your own first year — find out which end you would be entering at.
Even at the 25th percentile Petroleum Engineers pays $106,270, $56,250 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
Avoid it if you would find the pace frustrating — the review and approval cycle is deliberately slower than the design work.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 18,060 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 1.9x — $106,270 to $197,920 — is wide enough that specialising inside Petroleum Engineers pays measurably. $144,910 is the middle of a range you can move within.
Put in money rather than ratios: $106,270 at the 25th percentile, $144,910 at the midpoint, $197,920 at the 75th. $91,650 separates the quarter of Petroleum Engineers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $197,920, the 75th percentile, is worth $53,010 a year more than the $144,910 midpoint and $91,650 more than the $106,270 a quarter of Petroleum Engineers settle for.
$53,010 separates $144,910 from the $197,920 top quarter, while only $38,640 separates it from $106,270. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Petroleum Engineers has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $69.66 at the midpoint for Petroleum Engineers, $51.09 at the 25th percentile and $95.15 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Petroleum Engineers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $144,910 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Petroleum Engineers, the hourly figure is $144,910 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else