Health and Safety Engineers

Summary

Health and safety engineers apply their knowledge of the sciences, such as chemistry, to promote safety on the job.

Quick Facts: Health and Safety Engineers
2010 Median Pay	$75,430 per year $36.26 per hour
Entry-Level Education	Bachelor’s degree
Work Experience in a Related Occupation	None
On-the-job Training	None
Number of Jobs, 2010	23,700
Job Outlook, 2010-20	13% (About as fast as average)
Employment Change, 2010-20	3,100

What Health and Safety Engineers Do

Health and safety engineers develop procedures and design systems to keep people from getting sick or injured and to keep property from being damaged. They combine knowledge of health or safety and of systems engineering to make sure that chemicals, machinery, software, furniture, and other products are not going to cause harm to people or buildings.

Work Environment

Health and safety engineers typically work in offices. However, they also must spend time at worksites when necessary, which sometimes requires travel.

How to Become a Health and Safety Engineer

Health and safety engineers must have a bachelor’s degree, typically in electrical, chemical, mechanical, industrial, or some other engineering discipline.

Pay

The median annual wage of health and safety engineers was $75,430 in May 2010.

Job Outlook

Employment of health and safety engineers is expected to grow 13 percent between 2010 and 2020, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Although manufacturing and engineering companies will still be the main users of their services, health and safety engineers are being employed in new areas, such as health care, to prevent costly accidents involving people and equipment.

Similar Occupations

Compare the job duties, education, job growth, and pay of health and safety engineers with similar occupations.

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Contacts for More Information

Learn more about health and safety engineers by contacting these additional resources.

What Health and Safety Engineers Do About this section

Health and safety in the workplace is a major concern of health and safety engineers.

Health and safety engineers develop procedures and design systems to keep people from getting sick or injured and to keep property from being damaged. They combine a knowledge of health or safety and of systems engineering to make sure that chemicals, machinery, software, furniture, and other products are not going to cause harm to people or buildings.

Duties

Health and safety engineers typically do the following:

• Review plans and specifications for new machinery or equipment to make sure it meets safety requirements
• Inspect facilities, machinery, and safety equipment to identify and correct potential hazards
• Evaluate the effectiveness of various industrial control mechanisms
• Ensure that a building or product complies with health and safety regulations, especially after an inspection that required changes
• Install safety devices on machinery or direct the installation of these devices
• Review employee safety programs and recommend improvements
• Maintain and apply their knowledge of current policies, regulations, and industrial processes

Health and safety engineers also investigate industrial accidents, injuries, or occupational diseases to determine their causes and to see whether they could have been or can be prevented. They interview employers and employees to learn about work environments and incidents leading up to accidents or injuries. They also evaluate the corrections that were made to remedy violations found during health inspections.

Health and safety engineers are also active in two related fields: industrial hygiene and occupational hygiene. 

In industrial hygiene, they focus on the effects of chemical, physical, and biological agents. They recognize, evaluate, and control these agents to keep people from getting sick or injured. For example, they might anticipate that a particular manufacturing process will give off a potentially harmful chemical and recommend either a change to the process or a way to contain and control the chemical.  

In occupational hygiene, health and safety engineers investigate the environment in which people work and use science and engineering to recommend changes to keep workers from being exposed to sickness or injuries. They help employers and employees understand the risks and improve working conditions and working practices. For example, they might observe that the noise level in a factory is likely to cause short-term and long-term harm to workers and recommend ways to reduce the noise level through changes to the building or by having workers wear strong headphones.

Health and safety engineering is a broad field covering many activities. The following are specific types of health and safety engineers:

Aerospace safety engineers work on missiles, radars, and satellites to make sure that they function safely as designed.

Fire prevention and protection engineers design fire prevention systems for all kinds of buildings. They often work for architects during the design phase of new buildings or renovations. They must be licensed, and they must keep up with changes in fire codes and regulations.

Product safety engineers investigate the causes of accidents or injuries that might have resulted from the use or misuse of a product. They propose solutions to reduce or eliminate any safety issues associated with products. They also participate in the design phase of new products to prevent injuries, illnesses, or property damage that could occur with the use of the product.

Systems safety engineers work in many fields, including aerospace, and are moving into new fields, such as software safety, medical safety, and environmental safety. These engineers take a systemic approach to identify hazards in these new fields so that accidents and injuries can be avoided.

For information on health and safety engineers who work in mines, see the profile on mining and geological engineers.

Work Environment About this section

Health and safety engineers may need to spend time at worksites.

Health and safety engineers held about 23,700 jobs in 2010.

Health and safety engineers typically work in offices. However, they also must spend time at worksites when necessary, which sometimes requires travel. Most health and safety engineers work full time.

The industries employing the largest numbers of health and safety engineers in May 2010 were as follows:

How to Become a Health and Safety Engineer About this section

Health and safety engineers inspect facilities, machinery, and safety equipment to identify and correct potential hazards.

Health and safety engineers must have a bachelor’s degree, typically in electrical, chemical, mechanical, industrial, or some other engineering discipline. Employers value practical experience, so cooperative-education engineering programs at universities are valuable as well.

Education

High school students interested in becoming a health and safety engineer will benefit from taking high school courses in mathematics, such as algebra, trigonometry, and calculus; and science, such as biology, chemistry, and physics.

Entry-level jobs as a health and safety engineer require a bachelor's degree. Bachelor's degree programs typically are 4-year programs and include classroom, laboratory, and field studies in applied engineering. In addition to programs in mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineering, programs in systems engineering and fire protection engineering are offered at some colleges and universities. Students interested in becoming a health and safety engineer should seek out coursework in occupational safety and health, industrial hygiene, ergonomics, or environmental safety.

Students interested in entering the relatively new field of software safety engineering may pursue a degree in computer science.

Most colleges and universities offer cooperative programs, which allow students to gain practical experience while completing their education.

A few colleges and universities offer 5-year accelerated programs that lead to both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. A master’s degree allows engineers to enter the occupation at a higher level, where they can develop and implement safety systems.

ABET (formerly the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accredits programs in engineering.

Important Qualities

Creativity. Health and safety engineers are asked to produce designs showing potential problems and remedies for them. They must be creative to work with unique situations with each project.

Deductive reasoning. Health and safety engineers must be able to interpret federal and state regulations and understand the goals of those regulations so that they can propose proper designs for specific work environments.

Problem sensitivity. Health and safety engineers must identify potential hazards and problems before they cause material damage or become a threat to peoples’ health. Thus, these engineers must be able to sense hazards to humans and property wherever they may arise in the workplace or, for consumer products, in the home.

Problem-solving skills. In designing solutions for entire organizational operations, health and safety engineers must take into account processes from more than one system at the same time. In addition, they must try to anticipate a range of human reactions to the changes they recommend.

Systems analysis. Health and safety engineers must observe and learn how operations currently function so that they can identify risks to people and property. This type of observation and learning requires the ability to think in terms of overall processes within an organization. Health and safety engineers can then recommend systemic changes to minimize risks.

Licenses

Only a few states require health and safety engineers to be licensed. Licensure is generally advised for those opting for a career in systems safety engineering.

Licensed engineers are called professional engineers (PEs). Licensure generally requires the following:

• A degree from an ABET-accredited engineering program
• A passing score on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam
• Relevant work experience, typically at least 4 years
• A passing score on the Professional Engineering (PE) exam

The initial Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam can be taken after graduation from college. Engineers who pass this exam are commonly called engineers in training (EITs) or engineer interns (EIs). After getting suitable work experience, EITs and EIs can take the second exam, called the Principles and Practice of Engineering.

Several states require continuing education for engineers to keep their license. Most states recognize licensure from other states, if the licensing state’s requirements meet or exceed their own licensure requirements.

Certification

Health and safety engineers typically have professional certification. Most earn either the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) certification, awarded by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, or the Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) certification, awarded by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Certification is generally needed to advance into management positions.

Advancement

New health and safety engineers usually work under the supervision of experienced engineers. To move to more difficult projects with greater independence, a graduate degree is generally required. This advanced degree allows an engineer to develop and implement safety programs. Certification as a safety professional or as an industrial hygienist is generally required for entry into management positions.

Pay About this section

The median annual wage of health and safety engineers was $75,430 in May 2010. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $45,530 and the top 10 percent earned more than $114,470.

Median annual wages in the industries employing the largest numbers of health and safety engineers in May 2010 were as follows:

Most health and safety engineers work full time.

Job Outlook About this section

Employment of health and safety engineers is expected to grow 13 percent from 2010 to 2020, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

Health and safety engineers have long been employed in manufacturing industries to cut costs, save lives, and produce safe consumer products.

They are also now applying the same principles in new areas, such as health care, in which recent studies have documented the high costs of accidents in hospitals. Health and safety engineers can help prevent accidents as biomedical engineers develop advances in their field. Accident prevention is likely to become increasingly important for the healthcare industry as a way of cutting costs.

Another major factor likely to drive employment is the emerging field of software safety engineering. Software must work exactly as intended, especially when it controls, for example, elevators or automobiles, where a glitch in the software could cause serious injury to people and damage to equipment. The number of machines and mechanical devices controlled by software is expected to continue to grow, and the need to apply the principles of systems safety engineering to this software is expected to grow as well.

Contacts for More Information About this section

For information about general engineering education and career resources, visit

American Society for Engineering Education

Technology Student Association

For more information about accredited engineering programs, visit

ABET

American Society of Safety Engineers

For more information about the Professional Engineer license, visit

National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying 

National Society of Professional Engineers

For information about protecting worker health, visit

American Industrial Hygiene Association

For information about certification, visit

American Board of Industrial Hygiene

Board of Certified Safety Professionals