Updated
PERM occupation, SOC 17-2074, #751 of 1,410 by filings
Electrical Engineers, R&D
- Biggest sponsor
- NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY · 15% of its filings
- Busiest state
- CA · 15% of its filings
- Major group
- Architecture and engineering · SOC 17
Weighing an offer for this job?
Where it falls among certified offers, and the four wage levels DOL sets for it by area.
Too few cases for a rate
12 decided filings: too few for an approval rate.
Why
Across every PERM case DOL decided in this window, 3.20% were denied. At that rate a file this size comes back clean most of the time whatever the occupation did, so a percentage would be a fact about how few cases there are. Telling a clean record apart from the field takes about 117 decided cases.
Median wage
$94,250
all PERM $103,272
Filings
13
#751 of 1,410
Approval
Not shown
withheld: 12 decided
Median days
481
4 slower than the field
What it pays
Where its median offer sits among every occupation, then the whole ladder of certified offers by year and by state.
Median offered wage
$94,250median of 13 filings, too few decided to rank
Approval rate
not shownunder 30 decided
Median days to decision
481 daysmiddle of 12 decided, too few to rank
Each bar counts occupations at that value. More
Who files it
The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, the places the work sits, and who the workers were.
Sponsors filing it
- NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY 2 filings
- UT-Battelle, LLC / Oak Ridge National Laboratory 2 filings
- Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC 1 filings
- Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC 1 filings
- Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. 1 filings
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1 filings
How this is counted
The employers with the most applications under this code. 8 of 13 filings, 62% of the total.
Firms filing it
- FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, BERNSEN & LOEWY, LLP 2 filings
- Kramer Rayson, LLP 2 filings
- Morgan, Lewis Bockius LLP 2 filings
- BERRY APPLEMAN & LEIDEN LLP 1 filings
- Bordeau & Noulles LLC 1 filings
- Law Office of Leila Freijy PLLC 1 filings
How this is counted
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 9 of 13 filings, 69% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- California 2
- Michigan 2
- Tennessee 2
- Colorado 1
- District of Columbia 1
- Kansas 1
How this is counted
The worksite state on the application, which is where the job is and not where the company is headquartered. Volume by state across everyone is on the state map. These 6 states cover 9 of 13 filings.
Where the work is
- Oak Ridge, TN 2
- Albuquerque, NM 1
- Ann Arbor, MI 1
- Berkeley, CA 1
- Charlottesville, VA 1
- East Lansing, MI 1
How this is counted
The worksite city on the application, which is where the job is. These 6 cities cover 7 of 13 filings.
- Every sponsor that files it, by state, approval rate, offered wage and time to a decision
- Every filing for it, PERM, wage requests and H-1B, case by case
Newspapers it advertised in
- 2 cases
Knoxville News Sentinel
- 1 cases
Albuquerque Journal
- 1 cases
The Denver Post
- 1 cases
East Bay Times
- 1 cases
Lansing State Journal
- 1 cases
The Mercury News
How this is counted
The newspaper or professional journal named for each case's two print ads, one count per paper per case, however the filer spelled it.
Additional steps it used
- 10 cases
Job search websites
- 9 cases
The employer's website
- 4 cases
Local or ethnic newspapers
- 3 cases
Campus placement offices
- 3 cases
Radio or TV ads
- 2 cases
Employee referral programs
How this is counted
The steps a professional job needs beyond the job order and the ads, by the number of cases that name each.
How long before filing it began
- 0.0%
Under 30 days
- 0.0%
30 to 59 days
- 9.1%
60 to 89 days
- 45%
90 to 119 days
- 0.0%
120 to 149 days
- 45%
150 to 180 days
- 0.0%
Over 180 days
How this is counted
Days from the first recruitment step to the filing. 20 C.F.R. § 656.17(e) puts the job order and ads 30 to 180 days before filing.
Who filled these jobs, FY2016 to FY2023
From DOL's old form; the form in use since mid-2023 doesn't carry them. Top six of each.
Country of citizenship
- India 11
- Iran 4
- Brazil 3
- Colombia 2
- Ireland 2
- Nepal 2
Worker's education
- Master's 16
- Doctorate 12
- Bachelor's 5
Visa held when filed
- H-1B 27
- F-1 5
- E-2 1
Schools
- ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 3
- ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 2
- SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY 2
- UNIVERSIDADE DE SAO PAULO 2
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN 2
- AUBURN UNIVERSITY 1
Fields of study
- ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 20
- ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING 2
- COMPUTER SCIENCE 1
- ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING 1
- ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING 1
- ENERGY ENGINEERING 1
The job itself
What O*NET says the work is, what the market pays it by BLS's survey, its outlook, and DOL's wage levels year by year.
Against other jobs
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 751 of 1,410 by volume: 750 filed at least as many filings, and 659 filed no more.
- Just above
- Hydrologists 13 filings
- Just below
- N/A 13 filings
Other architecture and engineering roles
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. More
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.
- #747 Cartographers and Photogrammetrists 13 filings · 3 denied
- #742 Industrial Safety and Health Engineers 14 filings · 2 denied
- #763 Mechanical Engineers, Non-R&D 12 filings · none denied
- #771 Petroleum Engineers 12 filings · none denied
- #775 Electronics Engineers, Except Computer, Non-R&D 11 filings · 1 denied
- #706 Agricultural Engineers 15 filings · 3 denied
The same job on H-1B
1,144 certified H-1B labor condition applications for this occupation since FY2020, offering a median of $82,734 a year; the middle half ran $65,000 to $100,847. By state and year in the salary explorer.
Notes on these numbers
Reading the wage
A floor, not a salary survey: every level and metro mixed. DOL's four wage levels for this job, by area.
What the median is
The median wage employers committed to in federal filings for this occupation. It mixes every experience level and every metro, and it's a floor: the employer must offer at least the prevailing wage DOL determines for the occupation, level and county. Across all PERM filings the middle half of offered wages runs $45,178 to $141,357, so a figure inside that band is unremarkable whichever occupation it belongs to. The levels page reads DOL's OFLC wage search live.
What these numbers don't say
4 notes
- The code is the identity
- This one is SOC 17-2074. Two SOC codes can carry the same job title, so a title that looks duplicated on the ranking is two different occupations. Match on the code when you're checking a specific filing.
- A median isn’t an offer
- It's the middle of all 13 wages committed to for this occupation across the country, entry level and principal alike. The same role's medians swing hard by worksite, which the state map shows directly.
- Approval isn’t about the occupation
- The denial rate moves with what happened in the filing rather than with the job title, so nothing here is a property of Electrical Engineers, R&D. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- All 13 counted here carry a decision date, because every case in DOL's disclosure files does, so a case still waiting is in none of them. The largest filer of this occupation is NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.
The window these figures cover: DOL's PERM disclosure files for fiscal years 2024 to 2026, through the third quarter of 2026, 373,939 decided cases. Nothing pending is counted here. How each figure is built
Weighing an offer?
Compare it against this median, then check the state map, where the same occupation's medians swing hard by worksite.
Setting one?
All 1,410 occupations sort together on the wages page, and denial rates show how outcome moves with the offered wage.
Filings newer than DOL's last published file can't be attributed to this occupation until DOL publishes them. The live list on the case search page carries them by employer.
Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
Employers and firms: Derived from DOL's disclosure files · data through Jun 30, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly load
O*NET occupation data: O*NET Database, USDOL/ETA (onetcenter.org) · data through Aug 16, 2026 · twice a year
BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring
BLS employment projections: BLS Employment Projections (bls.gov) · data through Dec 31, 2025 · yearly, each autumn
DOL wage tables: DOL OFLC wage data downloads (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jul 1, 2026 · yearly, each july
What each source includes
Case data: Decided PERM cases only. A case still waiting isn't in here, so counts and durations describe finished cases.
Employers and firms: Employers, law firms and occupations ranked from decided cases only.
O*NET occupation data: What O*NET says each occupation is and takes: its description, tasks, Job Zone and the education workers report. A description of the job everywhere, not of any one employer's opening.
BLS market pay: What employers report paying everyone in each job, nationally, by state and by metro, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). Citizens and immigrants alike; not PERM offers.
BLS employment projections: BLS's ten-year projection of each job's employment and yearly openings, and the entry education it calls typical. A projection, not a count.
DOL wage tables: The four prevailing wage levels DOL publishes for every job in every area, each wage year from 2021-22, as DOL's own tables print them. The floors an offer is held to, not what anyone was paid.
Cite this page
Waiting on a PERM case?
- When it'll likely be decided
- An email when DOL moves it