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Professionals · code 2143

Environmental engineers

Environmental engineers conduct research, advise on, design and direct implementation of solutions to prevent, control or remedy negative impacts of human activity on the environment utilizing a variety of engineering disciplines. They conduct environmental assessments of construction and civil engineering projects and apply engineering principles to pollution control, recycling and waste disposal. Tasks include - (a) conducting research, assessing and reporting on the environmental impact of existing and proposed construction, civil engineering and other activities; (b) inspecting industrial and municipal facilities and programmes to evaluate operational effectiveness and ensure compliance with environmental regulations; (c) designing and overseeing the development of systems, processes and equipment for control, management, or remediation of water, air or soil quality; (d) providing environmental engineering assistance in network analysis, regulatory analysis, and planning or reviewing database development; (e) obtaining, updating, and maintaining plans, permits, and standard operating procedures; (f) providing engineering and technical support for environmental remediation and litigation projects, including remediation system design and determination of regulatory applicability; (g) monitoring progress of environmental improvement programmes; (h) advising corporations and government agencies of procedures to follow in cleaning up contaminated sites to protect people and the environment; (i) collaborating with environmental scientists, planners, hazardous waste technicians, engineers from other disciplines, and specialists in law and business to address environmental problems. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Air pollution control engineer - Environmental analyst - Environmental engineer - Environmental remediation specialist - Wastewater process engineer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Environmental scientist - 2133 - Radiation protection expert - 2263

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 312 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • environmental engineer
  • environmental expert

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

61.9
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 38.1 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 38.1 = 61.9

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

29.2
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

8.1
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 5.4 · hand skill 0 · cramped spaces 18.8 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 29.2 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 51, while the average is 38.1. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 51

    Conducting research, assessing and reporting on the environmental impact of existing and proposed construction, civil engineering and other activities

    Medium
  2. 43.5

    Monitoring progress of environmental improvement programmes

    Low
  3. 41.3

    Providing environmental engineering assistance in network analysis, regulatory analysis, and planning or reviewing database development

    Low
  4. 39

    Designing and overseeing the development of systems, processes and equipment for control, management, or remediation of water, air, or soil quality

    Low
  5. 39

    Obtaining, updating, and maintaining plans, permits, and standard operating procedures

    Low
  6. 35.8

    Providing engineering and technical support for environmental remediation and litigation projects, including remediation system design and determination of regulatory applicability

    Low
  7. 35.3

    Advising corporations and government agencies of procedures to follow in cleaning up contaminated sites to protect people and the environment

    Low
  8. 33.5

    Collaborating with environmental scientists, planners, hazardous waste technicians, engineers from other disciplines and specialists in law and business to address environmental problems.

    Low
  9. 25

    Inspecting industrial and municipal facilities and programmes to evaluate operational effectiveness and ensure compliance with environmental regulations

    Low

9 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
71
AI does it for you
33

Helping wins by 38 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2339

Compared with similar jobs

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” group, averaging 61.3. This one is above that.