Chemical Engineers

Low Risk
20%

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Vote Comments (12)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
11%
(Minimal Risk)
POLLING
29%
(Low Risk, Based on 815 votes)
Average: 20%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
9.8%
by year 2033
WAGES
$112,100
or $53.89 per hour
Volume
21,140
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
8.1/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

People also viewed

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Calculated automation risk

11% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): Occupations in this category have a low probability of being automated, as they typically demand complex problem-solving, creativity, strong interpersonal skills, and a high degree of manual dexterity. These jobs often involve intricate hand movements and precise coordination, making it difficult for machines to replicate the required tasks.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Originality

  • Social Perceptiveness

  • Persuasion

  • Negotiation

User poll

29% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 11% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Chemical Engineers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Very fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Chemical Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 9.8% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Chemical Engineers' was $112,100, or $54 per hour

'Chemical Engineers' were paid 133.3% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 21,140 people employed as 'Chemical Engineers' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 7 thousand people are employed as 'Chemical Engineers'.

Job description

Design chemical plant equipment and devise processes for manufacturing chemicals and products, such as gasoline, synthetic rubber, plastics, detergents, cement, paper, and pulp, by applying principles and technology of chemistry, physics, and engineering.

SOC Code: 17-2041.00

Comments (12)

Leave a comment
Anonymous (No chance)
18 Aug 2025 04:32
Chemical engineering not only requires human thinking but i also think that since ai sometimes makes mistakes in things as simple as facts or calculations, it might cause an error during the design process which ends up as a faulty product if the entire design and testing process has been automated. Because of this I think that it is impossible.
Dan (Low)
15 Sep 2025 11:52
High degree of collaboration between job descriptions and departments, client facing roles especially difficult to automate / replace.
Anant (Low)
23 Jul 2025 09:10
Too much manual labour involved
Manual interventions required
Melissa (No chance)
04 Dec 2024 15:28
too hard to do and doesnt involve manual repeating tasks(i think)
Jeremy Ibuprofen
05 May 2021 02:25
CE is not to be taken over by robots as Shreyash Gadakh says it needs a human brain and an imaginative mind.
Malcom
28 Oct 2023 22:56
If a ChemE is skilled at concept-intitiation and development, he/she/they will be able to work together with AI, but I could see this job seeing cuts in the future once more productivity is leveraged through AI.
Michi (No chance)
25 Nov 2019 14:19
CE work requires creative ideas, problem solving mindset and out of the box thinking.
Kevin hsueh
01 Dec 2020 05:33
I agree with you. Robots don’t have Brain to solve humanity problem. If the robot really takes our jobs . I think our human in earth whose intelligence will decrease because we don’t use our brain .
Elbarqy
27 Mar 2025 02:42
the same goes for computer programming, we just have enough data on the matter that's why it's very risky atm, when the attention shift to you, your job would be at risk, and software engineers would be the one automating this job.
JK (Low)
19 Apr 2024 12:37
Being in the second year of Chemical Engineering, I feel certain factors of process development would require the assistance of AI, but not a complete takeover, as these machines cannot account in for human errors and other intricacies of designing plants
CTB (Moderate)
29 Jun 2023 20:43
Regardless of the difficulties that can be found in everyday problems, tasks like plant design can be fully automated based on location, requirements, and technologies to be applied. As well, many tasks for a plant can be partially automated, like auxiliary services, fire prevention, and update related documents.
Adrian Quesada Paredes (Moderate)
07 Jun 2024 10:35
Because over the years, it has been seen that technology is superior.
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