DEGREEINDEX

Career route

Do you need a degree to be a civil engineer?

Usually, but there are other routes

Degree apprenticeships with large contractors reach the same chartership as the university route.

The official route in

The National Careers Service publishes the entry routes for this job — apprenticeship, college, university and direct application — with the GCSE and A-level requirements for each. It is the authoritative source, and worth reading before committing to anything.

If you do take the degree route

The closest subject is Engineering. On current fees and median graduate earnings, here is what it costs and how long it takes to pay for itself against not going at all.

Worth it after

18 yrs post-grad

Borrowed

£71,160

You will repay

£142,341

Starting salary

£32,400

The short answer is our reading of the entry routes, written conservatively — where a non-degree path exists at all, we say so. The National Careers Service profile is the authoritative source and should be your check before deciding. Civil engineer earnings shown here are for Engineering graduates, not for this job specifically.