All occupations · #465 of 1,410 by volume
Petroleum Engineers
SOC 17-2171.00, in the architecture and engineering major group. 48 PERM filings in DOL's current disclosure window, 47 certified and 0 denied.
This rate is level with the field
Computed over 47 decided filings. The 95% interval runs up to a 7.6% denial rate, which still covers the 3.20% the field as a whole records, so this record can't be told apart from the field in either direction.
Median wage
$141,522
all PERM $103,272
Filings
48
#465 of 1,410
Approval
100.0%
field 96.8%
Median days
496
19 slower than the field
Median offered wage
$141,522above 90%
Approval rate
100.0%ahead of 91%, level with 49 more
Median days to decision
496 daysahead of 2%
Who files this job
The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, and the states the work sits in.
Sponsors filing it
- Murphy Exploration & Production Company USA 5 filings
- CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY 2 filings
- Gladiator Energy LLC 2 filings
- KAPPA NORTH AMERICA INC. 2 filings
- Liberty Oilfield Services, LLC 2 filings
- McKinsey & Company, Inc. United States 2 filings
The employers with the most applications under this code. 15 of 48 filings, 31% of the total.
Firms filing it
- Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP 9 filings
- Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP 5 filings
- Caplan and Earnest LLC 3 filings
- Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. 3 filings
- Foster LLP 2 filings
- HUYNH LAW FIRM 2 filings
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 24 of 48 filings, 50% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- Texas 34
- North Dakota 3
- Colorado 2
- Oklahoma 2
- Utah 2
- Alaska 1
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 44 of 48 filings.
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 465 of 1,410 by volume: 464 filed at least as many filings, and 945 filed no more.
- Just above
- Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teachers, Postsecondary 48 filings
- Just below
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers 48 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. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.
- #493 Marine Engineers and Naval Architects 42 filings · 2 denied
- #497 Biomedical Engineers 42 filings · 2 denied
- #418 Civil Engineering Technologists and Technicians 61 filings · 6 denied
- #529 Landscape Architects 33 filings · none denied
- #539 Microsystems Engineers 30 filings · none denied
- #555 Fuel Cell Engineers 27 filings · none denied
Reading the wage
This 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.
What these numbers don't say
- The code is the identity
- 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 every wage 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. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- Every case in DOL's disclosure files carries a decision date, so a case still waiting is in none of these counts. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.
The window these figures cover
DOL's FY2026 Q3 and FY2025 Q4 and New Form FY2024 Q4 and FY2024 Q4 PERM disclosure files, unioned and de-duplicated by case number: 373,939 cases. Every case in them carries a decision, so nothing here counts what’s still pending. How each figure is built, and what it can and can't answer, is set out in the methodology.
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.
Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
Employers and firms: Derived from the disclosure corpus · data through Aug 26, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly ingest