The engineers, planners, inspectors, and road crews who design, build, and maintain the highways, bridges, and streets everything moves on.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
State DOT Chief Engineer: Senior engineer who leads highway and bridge programs for a state Department of Transportation. Typical pay $165k.
Bridge Engineer: Designs new bridges and figures out how to repair or strengthen old ones. Typical pay $115k.
Transportation Economist: Studies the costs, benefits, and pricing of roads, transit, freight, and airports. Typical pay $120k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Transportation Planner: Plans how a city or region's roads, transit, bike lanes, and sidewalks should grow over the next 20+ years. Typical pay $82k.
Traffic Engineer: Designs intersections, signals, and road layouts to keep traffic moving safely. Typical pay $100k.
Travel Demand Modeler: Builds computer models that predict how many people and vehicles will use a road or transit line in the future. Typical pay $90k.
Transportation Engineering Technician: Supports traffic and highway engineers with surveys, drawings, traffic studies, and construction checks. Typical pay $65k.
Toll System Technician: Installs and fixes the overhead cameras, antennas and lasers that charge drivers tolls without stopping. Typical pay $62k.
Tunnel Operations Technician: Watches over road tunnels from a control room, running giant fans, lights and fire systems and responding to crashes inside. Typical pay $65k.
Road Ecologist: Studies where animals get hit by cars and designs overpasses, tunnels and fences that help wildlife cross highways safely. Typical pay $72k.
Starter: fastest way in
Traffic Management Center Operator: Watches highway cameras and sensors from a control room, dispatching help for crashes and updating message signs. Typical pay $52k.
Highway Maintenance Worker: Keeps roads in shape: patching potholes, clearing debris, mowing, and repairing guardrails. Typical pay $48k.
Snowplow Operator: Drives big plow trucks to clear snow and spread salt during storms. Typical pay $48k.
Pavement Marking Technician: Paints the lines, arrows, and crosswalks on roads and parking lots. Typical pay $44k.
Paving Equipment Operator: Runs the machines that lay and compact asphalt and concrete on roads. Typical pay $50k.
Highway Flagger: Controls traffic through work zones with stop/slow paddles to keep road crews safe. Typical pay $38k.
Drawbridge Operator: Raises and lowers movable bridges to let boats pass, stopping road traffic below. Typical pay $50k.
Traffic Count Technician: Sets up sensors and cameras on roads to count cars, bikes, and pedestrians for planners. Typical pay $42k.
Highway Rest Area Attendant: Keeps highway rest stops and state welcome centers clean, stocked and safe for travelers, and answers questions. Typical pay $32k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.