Texas has one of the largest civil-engineering workforces in the United States. As of September 10, 2026, the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors listed 32,697 Active Civil PEs on the public roster. Civil is the biggest licensed branch in the state: 35,538 engineers have Civil (CIV) on their license, about 45% of the 79,453 PEs on the full Texas roster.
Those license counts are not the same thing as jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 34,870 people employed as civil engineers in Texas in May 2025, second only to California’s 55,180. Nationally, BLS estimated 367,840 civil-engineer jobs that year.
The two numbers sit close together, but they measure different things. BLS counts people working in the occupation inside Texas, including recent graduates and engineers-in-training who are not yet licensed.
The Board counts people who hold a renewable Texas PE with Civil on the license, including some who live or work elsewhere and excluding people whose licenses have been expired long enough to drop off the roster. Texas also issues a single PE license rather than a separate structural-engineer practice act of the kind Georgia uses. Structural, geotechnical, and traffic work in Texas is sealed under the PE, which is why Civil dominates the roster. For pay, employers and projects in the state’s largest metro, see our Dallas-Fort Worth civil and structural engineer talent maps, for Houston, our Houston civil and Houston structural engineer talent maps, for Austin, our Austin civil and Austin structural engineer talent maps, and for San Antonio, our San Antonio civil and San Antonio structural engineer talent maps.
Where Texas civil engineers work
Employment is concentrated in the metropolitan triangle that holds most of the state’s 31.7 million residents.
May 2025 BLS estimates for civil engineers:
| Metro area | Civil engineers employed |
|---|---|
| Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands | 12,140 |
| Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington | 8,010 |
| Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos | 4,940 |
| San Antonio–New Braunfels | 2,230 |
| Corpus Christi | 820 |
| Beaumont–Port Arthur | 720 |
| El Paso | 550 |
Those four largest metros account for about 27,320 jobs, or 78% of statewide civil-engineer employment. Houston alone is the third-largest civil-engineer metro in the country, behind Los Angeles and New York.
The official roster does not publish home addresses, but employer names show the same urban and public-works tilt.
After combining obvious name variants on the September 2026 Active Civil file, the largest identifiable employer is the Texas Department of Transportation, with roughly 1,170 listings. Large private employers include Kimley-Horn (about 500+), AECOM (about 350+), LJA Engineering (247), BGE (214), Jacobs, HDR, WSP, Quiddity, Halff, HNTB, Pape-Dawson, and Freese and Nichols.
About 2,500 Active Civil rows have a blank employer field. A little more than 1,100 Active Civil PEs also carry a second or third branch; Structural is the most common add-on.
The employer list splits into two worlds. The public side is TxDOT, the cities and counties, and the river authorities and water districts steady hiring, defined-benefit pensions, and work that never runs out. The private side is consulting, led by the transportation and land-development firms, where headcount follows the project calendar and pay runs higher at the top.
A civil engineer in Texas can move between the two more easily than in most states, because both sides seal work under the same PE and the same TxDOT design standards.
The blank employer field on about 2,500 Active Civil rows is worth reading correctly. Some of those engineers are self-employed or between roles, but many simply didn’t update the field at renewal. It is not evidence of 2,500 unemployed PEs.
What civil engineers in Texas earn
BLS May 2025 wage data for civil engineers in Texas:
| Percentile | Annual wage |
|---|---|
| 10th (entry range) | $63,240 |
| 25th | $77,200 |
| Median | $96,860 |
| 75th | $127,340 |
| 90th | $164,330 |
The Texas median is $96,860, or $46.57 an hour. That is a few percent below the U.S. median of $100,840. The Texas mean is higher than the median, at $104,250, which means a long upper tail. The top tenth in Texas earns $164,330 or more, slightly above the national 90th percentile of $163,220.
Pay follows the same metro pattern as headcount. Houston’s median is $100,950, with a 90th percentile of $168,240. Austin’s median is $100,470. Dallas–Fort Worth sits near the state median at $96,920. San Antonio’s median is lower, at $88,290. Smaller metros such as Abilene, Amarillo, El Paso, and McAllen cluster in the mid-$70,000s to low-$80,000s. Midland is an outlier at the top of the range: its 90th percentile reaches $202,380, reflecting energy-sector competition for licensed engineers.
Nationally, the Occupational Outlook Handbook puts civil-engineer median pay at $100,840 in May 2025 and projects 6% job growth from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations, with about 22,700 openings a year. An earlier BLS employment-projections table for 2024–34 had civil engineering growing 5.0%, from 368,900 to 387,500 jobs. Either way, the occupation is expanding, not shrinking.
The license pipeline
Civil is not only the largest Texas PE branch. It is also relatively young on the roster. The median Active Civil license was granted in 2016. Roughly 36% of Active Civil PEs received their Texas license in 2020 or later. That is consistent with a decade of highway, water, and land-development hiring.
The universities feeding that pipeline are large. At UT Austin’s Cockrell School, Fall 2025 enrollment included 620 civil-engineering undergraduates and 297 civil-engineering graduate students. In 2024–25 the school awarded 113 civil bachelor’s degrees, 79 master’s, and 20 doctorates.
Texas A&M’s Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is larger still. Its 2025–26 fact sheet reported 931 undergraduates (excluding freshmen), 203 master’s students, and 190 doctoral students, with 251 bachelor’s, 93 master’s, and 37 doctoral degrees awarded in 2024–25. U.S. News ranked the public undergraduate program 8th and the graduate program 9th in 2026. UT Arlington, the University of Houston, and Texas Tech also graduate substantial civil classes.
A PE is not automatic with the diploma. Texas still requires an accredited degree, the FE exam, qualifying experience, and the PE exam. The Board’s public roster lists only renewable licenses. After two years expired, a PE drops off the published file.
Why the demand stays high
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Texas Section graded the state’s infrastructure a C in 2025, the same overall mark as in 2021 and a notch above the national C-minus. The mix underneath that average is uneven. Aviation received a B. Bridges received a B-. Roads improved to a C-. Drinking water fell to a D+. Wastewater and levees were graded D-.
The bridge number is the one that best shows the scale of the civil workload. Texas has about 56,000 bridges, twice as many as any other state, carrying on the order of 616 million vehicles a day. Only 1.2% were listed in poor condition, the third-lowest poor-condition rate in the country. Keeping that inventory from slipping is a permanent civil-engineering job, not a one-time project. TxDOT’s Texas Clear Lanes program, cited in the same report card at about $100 billion, is one of the large transportation packages sitting on top of that inventory.
Population growth keeps adding work. Census estimates put Texas at 31.7 million people in July 2025, up 391,000 from 2024. That is more than twice the national growth rate. New residents show up as subdivision plats, water plants, flood projects, school sites, data centers, and freeway interchanges. Heavy and civil engineering construction employment in Texas was about 203,000 in late 2025 and still near that level in January 2026, up sharply from the early-2020s.
What this means if you’re hiring civil engineers in Texas
Four metros hold 78% of the state’s civil engineers, which sounds like a deep pool until you factor in who is competing for it. TxDOT alone accounts for roughly 1,170 Active Civil PE listings, and the large consulting firms Kimley-Horn, AECOM, LJA, BGE and the rest are all drawing from the same Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth and Austin talent base.
A firm hiring a licensed civil engineer in those cities is bidding against public agencies with pension plans and national firms with deep benches.
The pay tables set the floor. A licensed engineer with a decade of experience in Houston expects to be near the metro’s $100,950 median at minimum, and anyone with structural or geotechnical seals sits in the upper quartile. Midland’s $202,380 90th-percentile figure is the clearest signal in the data: where energy money is competing for PEs, salaries move fast.
Employers outside the big four metros should expect to pay a premium or recruit relocations, because the local pool is small. Corpus Christi, Beaumont and El Paso together employ fewer civil engineers than Austin does on its own.
If you’d rather not run that search yourself, Apollo Technical’s civil engineering recruiters place licensed and pre-licensure engineers across Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston and Austin–San Antonio.
What this means if you’re considering whether civil engineering is a good career in Texas
The 36% of Active Civil PEs licensed in 2020 or later tells you the roster is refilling, not aging out. Texas is hiring at the entry and mid-career level, not just replacing retirements. For an engineer-in-training, that matters: the state employs nearly 35,000 civil engineers but licenses just under 33,000 in Active status, so a meaningful share of the workforce is still working toward the PE, and employers are used to hiring at that stage.
Out-of-state engineers should note that Texas accepts PE applications by comity for engineers already licensed in another state, so a current license elsewhere does not mean starting over. And because Texas issues a single PE rather than a separate structural license, a structural engineer moving from a state like Georgia or Illinois will find the paperwork simpler, not harder.
Geography is the main career decision. Houston pays the most and has the most jobs, with a heavy tilt toward water, flood control and energy-adjacent work. Austin pays nearly as well with a land-development and transportation mix, and the Texas A&M and UT pipelines mean competition is stiff for junior roles there.
Dallas–Fort Worth is the largest transportation and public-works market by project count. San Antonio pays about 9% less than Houston at the median but has a lower cost of living to match. Statewide, Texas ranks #10 for engineering pay after cost of living in our engineering salaries by state analysis.
How to read the statistics
Three cautions keep the numbers honest.
First, Civil on a PE license is broader than “highway designer.” BLS occupation 17-2051 includes structural, traffic, and geotechnical engineers. The Texas roster’s Civil branch is the closest public license tag, not a perfect map onto every job title.
Second, the public roster is thinner than it used to be. Senate Bill 510, effective September 1, 2023, removed mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of individual licensees from the published file. Employer name, PE number, status, dates, and branches remain.
Third, headcount is not the same as capacity. An Active license means the holder may practice. It does not say how many hours they bill, whether they supervise a team, or whether they still do design work. Inactive licenses are current but not valid for active practice; there were 2,841 Inactive Civil PEs on the September 2026 roster.
The usable snapshot is still clear. Texas employs more civil engineers than every state except California. It licenses more than 32,000 of them in Active status. Most of the jobs sit in Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. Median pay is just under $97,000, with a wide spread by metro and experience. The universities are producing new civil graduates every year, and the state’s roads, water systems, and flood works still grade out as mediocre. That combination — a large licensed workforce and a long infrastructure punch list — is the basic statistic on civil engineers in Texas.
Frequently asked questions
How many civil engineers are there in Texas?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 34,870 employed civil engineers in Texas in May 2025. The Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors listed 32,697 Active Civil PEs as of September 2026.
What is the average salary for a civil engineer in Texas?
The median is $96,860 a year, and the mean is $104,250. Houston’s median is $100,950, Austin’s is $100,470, Dallas–Fort Worth’s is $96,920, and San Antonio’s is $88,290.
Which Texas city has the most civil engineering jobs?
Houston, with about 12,140 civil engineers — the third-largest metro for the occupation in the country. Dallas–Fort Worth is next at about 8,010.
Is civil engineering a growing field in Texas?
Yes. Texas added roughly 391,000 residents in 2025, its infrastructure grades a C, and heavy and civil engineering construction employment sits near 203,000. Nationally BLS projects 6% growth for civil engineers through 2035.
Sources
- Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, PE Roster Search
- TBPELS official PE roster download (ZIP/CSV, retrieved September 10, 2026)
- TBPELS Engineering Rosters hub
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Civil Engineers (SOC 17-2051)
- O*NET OnLine, Texas wages for Civil Engineers, 17-2051.00 (BLS 2025 wage data)
- CareerOneStop / BLS, current employment for Civil Engineers in Texas by metro
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Civil Engineers
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily, engineering employment projections and wages (March 4, 2026)
- BLS / FRED, Texas heavy and civil engineering construction employment (NAICS 237)
- American Society of Civil Engineers, “Civil Engineers: Texas Infrastructure Grade Remains a ‘C’” (February 18, 2025)
- ASCE Texas Section, Texas Infrastructure Report Card
- ASCE, 2025 Texas Infrastructure Report Card (full PDF)
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Texas (July 1, 2025 estimate 31,709,821)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 national and state population estimates
- The University of Texas at Austin, Cockrell School of Engineering, Program Enrollments and Degrees
- Texas A&M University, Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2025–26 Fact Sheet (PDF)
- Texas A&M civil department facts page
- TxDOT, record $100 billion 10-year transportation plan
- TxDOT Texas Clear Lanes
- Texas Legislature, Senate Bill 510, 88th Regular Session (roster privacy changes effective September 1, 2023)
