Before anyone digs, you find what's buried — locating and marking underground utilities and survey points in the field so crews don't hit a gas line or a cable. Marking what's hidden before the digging starts.
The work is outdoors and hands-on — using locating equipment to trace buried lines, marking them on the ground, and documenting what's where before excavation. The stakes are real, and a missed line can mean an outage, an injury, or worse. Much of the craft is reading faint signals to find what you can't see.
Utilities, locating companies, and survey firms set the pace, which spikes with construction season and dig requests. The days mean driving, weather, and tight turnaround on tickets, and you carry responsibility every time a crew trusts your marks. The work is steady but can feel repetitive and pressured.
It tends to fit the careful and self-directed — people who like working outdoors alone and take the safety stakes seriously. If you want a desk or a team around you, the solo, weather-bound routine may not suit. But if being the reason a dig goes safely matters, the work is concrete and genuinely important.
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Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Engineering roles →Before anyone digs, you find what's buried — locating and marking underground utilities and survey points in the field so crews don't hit a gas line or a cable. Marking what's hidden before the digging starts.
Median pay for a Location Worker is about $97K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $61K to $160K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Critical Thinking, Reading Comprehension, Operations Analysis, Speaking, and Writing.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 3.9% through 2034, with roughly 111,140 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Utility Division Project Manager, Environmental Construction Program Manager, and Commercial Construction Project Manager.
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