Updated
PERM occupation, SOC 17-2051.02, #248 of 1,410 by filings
Water/Wastewater Engineers
- Biggest sponsor
- AECOM Technical Services Inc. · 5% of its filings
- Busiest state
- TX · 22% 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.
This rate is level with the field
Over 141 decided filings, this rate can't be told apart from the field in either direction.
Why
The 95% interval runs up to a 5.0% denial rate, which still covers the 3.20% the field as a whole records.
Median wage
$88,200
all PERM $103,272
Filings
145
#248 of 1,410
Approval
98.6%
field 96.8%
Median days
480
3 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
$88,200above 63%
Approval rate
98.6%ahead of 76%
Median days to decision
480 daysahead of 39%
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
- AECOM Technical Services Inc. 7 filings
- Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. 7 filings
- Arcadis U.S., Inc. 5 filings
- Stantec Consulting Services, Inc. 5 filings
- HDR Engineering, Inc. 4 filings
- Michael Baker International, Inc. 4 filings
How this is counted
The employers with the most applications under this code. 32 of 145 filings, 22% of the total.
Firms filing it
- FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, BERNSEN & LOEWY, LLP 17 filings
- BERRY APPLEMAN & LEIDEN LLP 8 filings
- Fraser Stryker PC LLO 7 filings
- Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. 7 filings
- FISHER & PHILLIPS LLP 6 filings
- KPMG Law LLP 5 filings
How this is counted
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 50 of 145 filings, 34% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- Texas 32
- California 20
- Florida 13
- Arizona 8
- Virginia 8
- Ohio 6
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 87 of 145 filings.
Where the work is
- Austin, TX 11
- Houston, TX 7
- Phoenix, AZ 6
- Dallas, TX 5
- Virginia Beach, VA 5
- Tampa, FL 4
How this is counted
The worksite city on the application, which is where the job is. These 6 cities cover 38 of 145 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
- 11 cases
Austin American-Statesman
- 9 cases
Houston Chronicle
- 8 cases
The Dallas Morning News
- 6 cases
Miami Herald
- 5 cases
The Arizona Republic
- 5 cases
The Sacramento Bee
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
- 130 cases
Job search websites
- 99 cases
Local or ethnic newspapers
- 83 cases
The employer's website
- 33 cases
Radio or TV ads
- 28 cases
Employee referral programs
- 23 cases
Campus placement offices
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
- 31%
60 to 89 days
- 27%
90 to 119 days
- 23%
120 to 149 days
- 19%
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.
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.
- United States367,840 jobs
- Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TXAustin
- Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TXHouston
- Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZPhoenix
- Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TXDallas
- Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NCVirginia Beach
- middle half of pay (BLS)
- median
- 10th to 90th percentile
- DOL's Levels I to IV, left to right
- median PERM offer
| Area | BLS median | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $100,840 | ||||
| Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX | $100,470 | $70,491 | $88,421 | $106,330 | $124,259 |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | $100,950 | $71,386 | $91,291 | $111,176 | $131,082 |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | $90,330 | $67,850 | $82,763 | $97,698 | $112,611 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | $96,920 | $67,517 | $84,718 | $101,899 | $119,101 |
| Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC | $94,680 | $69,638 | $84,053 | $98,446 | $112,861 |
How these figures fit together
BLS surveys employers on what they pay everyone in a job; DOL builds its four levels from the same survey a year later (the July 2026 wage year uses BLS's May 2025 estimates). DOL publishes levels by area, not nationally, so the United States line has none. Levels are hourly in DOL's tables; here they're shown a year at 2,080 hours, as DOL computes them. The metros are the ones holding the most of this job's PERM filings, placed by Census's county files.
The block is the middle half of what employers report paying everyone in this job, citizen or not; the ticks under it are DOL's four prevailing wage levels for that metro, the floors a PERM or H-1B offer is held to. More
DOL's levels for this job in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX, year by year
Each July DOL resets the four levels from BLS's newest survey. A determination keeps the figures of the year it was issued in.
| Wage year | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | $70,491 | $88,421 | $106,330 | $124,259 |
| 2025-26 | $67,933 | $86,008 | $104,062 | $122,138 |
| 2024-25 | $64,979 | $81,827 | $98,675 | $115,523 |
| 2023-24 | $61,568 | $78,562 | $95,534 | $112,528 |
| 2022-23 | $59,696 | $76,752 | $93,787 | $110,843 |
| 2021-22 | $58,614 | $75,150 | $91,666 | $108,202 |
What the job is
Perform engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems.
- Preparation
- Considerable Preparation Needed
- O*NET Job Zone 4
- DOL's education basis
- Bachelor's degree
- Wage year 2026-27, on DOL's Appendix A list
- Jobs, 2025 to 2035
- +6.4%
- About 22,700 openings a year (BLS)
- Typical entry
- Bachelor's degree
- BLS
Bright Outlook O*NET OnLine lists this job for rapid growth.
The work, most important first
- Direct engineering activities, ensuring compliance with environmental, safety, or other governmental regulations.
- Manage and direct the construction, operations, or maintenance activities at project site.
- Inspect project sites to monitor progress and ensure conformance to design specifications and safety or sanitation standards.
- Compute load and grade requirements, water flow rates, or material stress factors to determine design specifications.
- Plan and design transportation or hydraulic systems or structures, using computer-assisted design or drawing tools.
- Provide technical advice to industrial or managerial personnel regarding design, construction, program modifications, or structural repairs.
The education workers in it report
- 86%
Bachelor's Degree
- 10%
Master's Degree
Titles people use for it
Civil Engineer, Design Engineer, Project Engineer, Structural Engineer, City Engineer, County Engineer, Engineer, Geotechnical Engineer.
O*NET also describes Transportation Engineers and Water/Wastewater Engineers under this SOC code.
Related jobs: Civil Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Transportation Engineers, Construction Managers, Water/Wastewater Engineers, Construction and Building Inspectors, Environmental Engineers.
This section includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database and O*NET OnLine by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. PERM Tracker has modified some of this information (the shares are rounded and only the top tasks are shown); what changed. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
Against other jobs
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 248 of 1,410 by volume: 247 filed at least as many filings, and 1,162 filed no more.
- Just above
- Compliance Managers 148 filings
- Just below
- Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and CareerTechnical Education 145 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.
- #243 Design Coordinator 156 filings · 4 denied
- #241 Aerospace Engineers 157 filings · 6 denied
- #238 Industrial Engineering Technologists and Technicians 159 filings · 6 denied
- #237 Landscape Architects 162 filings · 1 denied
- #265 Environmental Engineers 131 filings · 7 denied
- #229 Computer Hardware Engineers 175 filings · 2 denied
The same job on H-1B
31,043 certified H-1B labor condition applications for this occupation since FY2020, offering a median of $85,000 a year; the middle half ran $72,114 to $102,814. 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 17-2051.02. 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 145 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 Water/Wastewater Engineers. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- All 145 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 AECOM Technical Services Inc.. 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