A fire protection engineer analyzes potential fire hazards of buildings, materials and transportation systems — the core of the role as the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook describes it for fire prevention and protection engineers.
FPEs sit on the engineering side of the industry, where that analysis underpins the protection a project specifies.
This guide covers what FPEs do, who employs them, the degree and PE license path, pay, and where to find fire protection engineering jobs.
What is a fire protection engineer?
A fire protection engineer (FPE) is an engineer who specializes in fire protection.
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook places fire prevention and protection engineers inside its Health and Safety Engineers occupation (SOC 17-2111).
It describes them as the engineers who "analyze potential fire hazards of buildings, materials, and transportation systems."
BLS keeps no separate data series for fire protection engineers.
That is why the pay and outlook figures on this page use Health and Safety Engineers as the closest labeled group, and why BLS publishes no FPE-only headcount to quote.
The role is distinct from the installation and layout roles around it on a project.
The FPE works at the level of fire hazard analysis and the protection strategy for a building or site — the analysis and performance-based design work NCEES examines on the PE Fire Protection exam.
Where a project or employer calls for it, the role also carries the PE license that stands behind a design.
This guide uses the abbreviation FPE throughout.
The variant QFPE — qualified fire protection engineer — comes from federal construction criteria, where it has a precise definition covered below.
What do FPEs do day to day?
The center of the job is analysis: how a building, its contents and its occupants would behave in a fire, and what protection would change that outcome.
BLS's own description of fire prevention and protection engineers — analyzing potential fire hazards of buildings, materials and transportation systems — is the broad form of that work.
The discipline's breadth is easiest to see in the domains NCEES examines on the PE Fire Protection exam (specifications effective April 2027).
Those domains read as a map of what the profession is expected to know: fire protection analysis, fire science, smoke control, fire alarm and signaling, water-based systems, special hazards, passive and structural fire protection, and human behavior and evacuation.
Accountability is the other half of the role.
Under the DoD's Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC 3-600-01, 2016 edition with Change 6), a Qualified Fire Protection Engineer was defined as a registered PE who has passed the NCEES fire protection engineering exam and has relevant fire protection engineering experience.
Those criteria let a QFPE act as designer of record on fire protection work — a useful picture of where the responsibility sits at the top of this role.
Day to day, an FPE's assignments draw on both halves: the analysis and design domains the PE exam covers, and the accountability that comes with licensure where a project calls for it.
What that looks like in a given week varies by employer — the next section covers the settings, and the salary section below covers what the proxy data shows.
Where do FPEs work?
Federal work is the one employer side on the record.
The US government classifies fire protection engineers in its own Office of Personnel Management General Schedule series 0804 — Fire Protection Engineering — which uses the GS-800 professional engineering qualification standards.
DoD construction criteria, for their part, have historically set the QFPE bar described above for fire protection design work.
In the private market, the employer types to check first are consulting and design engineering firms, fire sprinkler contractors, fire alarm and life-safety integrators, and inspection and service companies.
Our research verified no employment breakdown of fire protection engineers by employer type, so treat that list as a checklist of places to look, not a measured share of where FPEs work.
How big is the field?
BLS's May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics counted 21,450 Health and Safety Engineers nationally — the broad occupation FPEs sit inside.
Treat that as a proxy figure: it includes engineers whose specialty is not fire protection, so it is not a count of fire protection engineers.
What education and license do FPEs need?
The degree route runs through engineering.
The University of Maryland's B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering is accredited by ABET's Engineering Accreditation Commission under the program criteria for fire protection and similarly named programs.
UMD describes its department as offering the only ABET-accredited undergraduate FPE degree program in the world — taught in person since 1957, with undergraduate FPE courses available online from Fall 2025.
Graduate routes exist alongside it.
WPI offers an M.S. in Fire Protection Engineering, also available online, and describes its program as one of only three in the nation — a claim about its own program, not a verified national count.
Cal Poly offers a Master of Science in Fire Protection Engineering.
The credential at the top of the profession is the PE.
NCEES administers the PE Fire Protection exam: computer-based, offered once a year on a single day at Pearson test centers, with April 13, 2027 the next test date listed.
NCEES says its PE exams are designed for engineers with a minimum of four years of post-college work experience in their discipline — and each state licensing board sets the experience it actually accepts.
Whether a given job needs the license depends on the state and the role.
BLS notes that licensure is not required for entry-level health and safety engineer positions, and that some states require fire protection engineers to have a license.
California is the clearest example on the title side: it licenses Fire Protection as a PE title act, meaning only a person licensed by the state board in that branch may use the title.
Civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, by contrast, are California's practice acts.
Federal criteria add their own layer.
A DoD change summary dated May 2026 for the rewritten UFC 3-600-01 describes an expanded QFPE qualification path.
The summary says the rewritten criteria add an alternative in which the qualification is "or approved by the DFPE" — the DoD component's designated fire protection engineer — flexibility the summary describes as covering non-traditional qualifications.
Verify before you plan around it
How much do FPEs earn?
The honest label first: BLS publishes no fire-protection-engineer-only wage, so the figure to quote is the one for the occupation FPEs sit inside — Health and Safety Engineers, SOC 17-2111.
In the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, that occupation had a median annual wage of $115,160, with the 10th percentile at $68,420 and the 90th percentile at $171,250.
Treat the band as a proxy: the same occupation includes engineers whose specialty is not fire protection.
Our fire protection engineer salary page collects the BLS figures with the occupation labeling kept intact, so you can see exactly what the number does and does not cover.
Is there a shortage of fire protection engineers?
Sized honestly: our research did not establish a verified count of US fire protection engineers or of annual FPE graduates, so a national shortage cannot be measured from the data we read.
Any precise "we are short N engineers" figure deserves the same caution, wherever you find it.
What the federal data does show is the projection for the proxy occupation: BLS projects Health and Safety Engineers employment to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations.
On top of growth, BLS projects about 1,200 openings a year across the decade.
The proxy cuts both ways.
A healthy outlook for health and safety engineers does not by itself prove demand for FPEs, and a hiring squeeze inside one contractor or agency does not prove a national shortage.
The practical read: watch the postings in your own market and note how many ask for the degree, the PE, or the QFPE credential.
Where to find FPE jobs
Search three streams.
First, consulting and design engineering firms, including the fire protection departments inside larger architecture and engineering practices.
Second, the contractor side: fire sprinkler contractors, fire alarm and life-safety integrators, and inspection and service firms.
Third, the public sector — federal agencies hiring under the 0804 series, plus DoD construction work, where the QFPE criteria described above have historically applied.
The title varies — fire protection engineer, fire prevention and protection engineer, QFPE — so search under several names, and read each posting for whether it wants the degree, the PE, or both.
The fire protection engineer jobs board here pulls current FPE openings into one place.
Career information, not licensing, legal, code, inspection, engineering or safety advice. Education, exam and licensure details change; confirm them with your state's licensing board and with NCEES before you act on them.