r/ChemicalEngineering • u/MistakeSea6886 • Sep 21 '23

Salary What’s the most profitable career path?

I’m a freshmen Engineering major that is taking gen Ed’s. I am thinking of switching to chemical engineering next year. I really like ChE but but want to pick a profitable career path, which is why I’m on the fence between it and Computer science. I did research and found that petroleum engineering is very profitable, and ChE can pick it pretty quickly. However with the way the world is going(more green energy), are renewable energy jobs such as nuclear power plants going to experience a boom in demand and become more profitable?

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u/someinternetdude19 Sep 22 '23

My experience in ChemE in undergrad was that with my subpar GPA (2.96) it was near impossible to land an internship (I wasn’t able to) and it took a lot of work and time to land the first job. It’s a very competitive market for new grads so unless you’re really going to put in the time to do well in school, build connections, and market yourself I wouldn’t recommend it. If it’s money you’re after and all that matters, this isn’t the place to do it. 4 years after graduation and I’m now finally where I want to be actually getting to do real design work. I’m also in water/wastewater which is probably the least profitable route a ChemE can take.

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u/NoSurvey1652 Mar 06 '25

Do you think water/wastewater will be profitable by 2030?

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u/someinternetdude19 Mar 06 '25

By profitable, I meant that the income compared to other fields is significantly lower for similar roles. I think it will be the same in 2030. If you’re looking at industry profitability that’s a different story. From the service providers point of view, you mainly just try to break even, but for consultants, manufacturers, and sales I think that will still be profitable but the volume of work could go down.

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u/NoSurvey1652 May 26 '25

I'm actually a Process & Proposal Engineer in the Wastewater Industry, almost everybody keeps saying you should probably change to Oil and Gas or move into the IT industry cause there money over than it'll ever be in Wastewater. i'm confused what to do getting into O&G seems next to impossible.