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Career Cluster
Architecture & Construction
- Are you good at making designs or models?
- Can you visualize projects in your mind?
- Do you enjoy looking at historic buildings?
- Are you good at interpreting plans and blueprints?
- Do you like to work with your hands?
- Would you enjoy designing a park or garden?
If you answered yes to some of the questions above, you may enjoy exploring the architecture and construction career cluster. This cluster includes jobs such as:
- architect
- electrician
- architectural restorer
- brick mason
- surveyor
- landscape architect
- urban planner
- drafter
Cluster Definition
Jobs in the architecture and construction career cluster involve designing, planning, managing, building, and maintaining the built environment, including public spaces.
Career Pathways in Architecture and Construction
A career pathway is an area of concentration within a career cluster. Each pathway contains a group of careers requiring similar academic and technical skills as well as similar industry certifications or postsecondary education. The architecture and construction career cluster has three pathways:
Construction
The construction pathway includes all the jobs involved in actual construction of structures, from houses to roads to power plants. Jobs include:
- carpenter
- project manager
- general contractor
- demolition worker
- heavy equipment operator
- mason
- pipefitter
- welder
- safety director
Design and Preconstruction
This pathway includes all the jobs that are done before a project can be built, including:
- architect
- preservationist
- highway engineer
- surveyor
- computer-aided drafter (CAD)
- specification writer
- drafter
- Civil Engineer: Waterslide Engineer
- Civil Engineer: Roller Coaster Designer
- Interior Designer
- Urban Planner
- Landscape Architect
Maintenance and Operations
This pathway contains all the jobs related to maintaining, repairing, and upgrading structures and public spaces. Sample occupations include:
- electrician
- highway maintenance worker
- plumber
- HVAC mechanic
- building inspector
- environmental engineer
- architectural historian
- specialty contractor
- equipment operator
- demolition engineer
