If you are an international civil or structural engineer, you have probably noticed that most sponsorship advice is written for software engineers. The numbers are different in civil, the firms are different, and the advice that works in tech mostly does not transfer.
Here are the firms with the largest H-1B approval counts in civil, structural, transportation and construction engineering, from public federal filing records for FY2023. The same data drives the civil engineering employer list.
Firms with the most approvals
| Firm | Approved H-1B petitions, FY2023 | Headquarters |
|---|---|---|
| Arup | 82 | New York, NY (US office) |
| WSP USA | 79 | New York, NY |
| AECOM | 74 | Dallas, TX |
| Jacobs | 57 | Dallas, TX |
| Black & Veatch | 47 | Overland Park, KS |
| Kiewit | 42 | Omaha, NE |
| Burns & McDonnell | 38 | Kansas City, MO |
| Stantec | 32 | Chandler, AZ (US office) |
| Bechtel | 24 | Reston, VA |
| HDR | 23 | Omaha, NE |
| DPR Construction | 22 | Redwood City, CA |
| Arcadis | 18 | Highlands Ranch, CO |
Why these numbers look small
Amazon filed over 6,000 H-1B petitions in the same year. Arup, the largest sponsor on this list, filed 82.
That gap is not a measure of how welcoming these firms are. It is the size of the industry's international hiring, and it changes how you should apply:
- A firm filing 80 petitions a year is sponsoring regularly. In civil, that is a strong signal, not a weak one. Calibrate against this list, not against tech.
- Volume is spread across offices. These are national firms with dozens of locations, and the office matters more than the company. A firm with 74 approvals is not filing 74 from one building.
- Fewer roles means less competition per opening, not more. The applicant pool for a transportation engineering role is a fraction of the pool for a software role.
The licensure question, which tech does not have
This is the part that catches international graduates out. Most civil engineering careers run through PE licensure, and the path has steps that take years:
- FE exam — take it as a student or new graduate. No citizenship requirement, no work authorization needed to sit it.
- Four years of qualifying experience under a licensed PE.
- PE exam and state licensure.
You do not need a PE to be hired as an entry-level engineer, and you do not need one to be sponsored. But firms hire graduates expecting them to progress toward it, so passing the FE before you apply is a real signal that you intend to build a career here rather than pass through. It is one of the few things you can do before you have a job that materially improves how your resume reads.
Roles these firms actually hire
- Civil Engineer (EIT) — the standard entry title for someone who has passed the FE
- Structural Engineer — building and bridge design
- Transportation Engineer — highways, transit, traffic modelling
- Water / Wastewater Engineer — utilities and municipal work
- Geotechnical Engineer — soils, foundations, site investigation
- Construction Manager / Field Engineer — the contractor side, where Kiewit and DPR sit
Design consultancies (Arup, WSP, AECOM, Jacobs, Stantec, HDR) and contractors (Kiewit, Bechtel, DPR) hire differently. Consultancies want analysis and design software; contractors want scheduling, cost and site experience.
Two things worth doing before you apply
Search by office, not by company. Civil hiring is tied to regional offices with their own project pipelines. "AECOM Dallas" and "AECOM Seattle" are close to separate hiring markets.
Check the posting for federal work restrictions. Infrastructure firms do a lot of government work, and roles touching federal or defence projects often carry citizenship or clearance requirements no amount of sponsorship history overrides. This is more common in civil than in most industries, and it is the single most common reason a promising application goes nowhere.
What these numbers are not
An approval count records what a firm did, not what it will do. A firm that filed 80 petitions last year can still decline to sponsor the role you applied for, and a firm with 15 can sponsor readily for the right specialism. Use the list to decide where your hours go, then confirm with the employer.
The full list, filterable by state and volume, is in the civil engineering employer directory. There are 50 firms on it.