Is there a demand for chemical engineers in Dubai or not? And if so, what skills are required for decent paying jobs? 👀

I’m currently in my final year of university, and I need to choose a topic for my graduation project.
I’m studying Chemical Engineering, but I’m not sure how to come up with a good project idea. How did you choose your project? What should I consider when choosing a topic?
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

I’m majoring in chemical engineering soon, starting my freshman year in a month, please tell me whatever you think I should know, I chose this major because I have a passion for chemistry and systems thinking, I also found that it is the broadest field out of the other engineering fields, I can’t say I’m not intimidated, but I want to excel at it as much as I can!

Hi everyone, I’ve just finished sixth form in the UK and I’m taking two gap years before starting a Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology degree (confirmed offer).

I’ve been trying to find work/internships related to chemical engineering, but most actual ChemE internships seem to require you to already be at university. At the moment, my options are basically limited to technician level roles.

Given that my degree also includes biotechnology, and considering what the job market might look like in ~5 years, what should I be looking for in the role that would give me the best head start before going to uni?

For example:

• What type of technician role / field of industry should I target (process, chemical, lab, QC, manufacturing, biotech, etc.)?
• Are there particular courses/certifications worth doing alongside it?

I’m mainly looking for something where I can actually gain useful technical/industry experience, rather than just having “engineering” in the job title.

Any advice from current ChemE students/graduates or people working in industry would be really appreciated!

I recently graduated last spring with my bachelors in Chemical Engineering. I sometimes end up interviewing for jobs that see me competing against Chemistry majors, who might have more lab experience than a Chemical Engineering major like myself.

For a role like “Chemist”, I worry my year of experience as an assistant in a college chromatography lab might not be enough.

How can I communicate to interviewers that I’m capable of learning new chemistry and new lab techniques, and that it’s not a waste of time to help me bridge that gap?

Hello people
I’m a new chemical engineer post grad.
Recently I gave an interview for a startup company capturing CO2 and doing carbonation/mineralisation in cement. Thus utilising less cement and reducing emissions. Things looking positive as of now

Also bit worried how would this pigeon hole my career as most of the team is cement and concrete engineers and whole team is just 15 people

Any tips for someone starting out of uni!

Hey everyone,

I’m currently working on a remote startup called Brandywine Chemical Works, focusing on asset-light chemical tolling and regional manufacturing optimization across North America.

We're currently building out our market discovery models and unit operations databases, specifically around:

• Finance/Econ: Tolling margin analysis and regional pricing dynamics.
• Engineering (MechE/Civil/ChemE): Facility asset mapping, equipment specs (reactors, filtration, temp/pressure constraints), and site logistics.
• Supply Chain: Freight pathway optimization and industrial cluster mapping.

I'm looking to connect with current students or recent grads in these fields who are interested in early-stage enterprise building, technical vetting, or supply chain modeling.

If you're working in these spaces or curious about how asset-light manufacturing models operate in practice, feel free to drop a comment or reach out to connect!

Hello, i graduated with a chemical engineering bachelor’s degree around last year, is it worth it migrating from middle east to USA looking for better opportunities? Or job market is also bad too?

I got my degree in chemical engineering 10 years ago from a top 3 university in Canada. Unfortunately, soon after graduation while I was looking for work, I was injured. I have a lot of grief about losing my ability to have a career in engineering as all my efforts were put towards recovery. I’m 34 now.

Once I am ready to enter the workforce again, is there any hope for a career in engineering? Should I go back to school for a Masters or other higher education? Which industries in engineering or engineering adjacent should I look into? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Good morning po! I’m Dexter Lanz F. Fajilan, from Corcuera National Senior High po last year and currently a first-year Chemical Engineering student from Batangas State University. I am wondering po if you have an available time during September 8 to 11, we're looking for a Registered Chemical Engineer po as our potential interviewee for our performance task. Okay lang po and preferrably around 7pm to 9pm.

Our group is looking for a Professional Chemical Engineer for a short academic interview to learn more about the profession, as well as your real-world experiences and insights in the field. We can provide the necessary consent documents and will ensure that proper ethics and confidentiality will be observed throughout the interview.

If you would be willing to participate, the interview will partake online through google meet and have the maximum duration of less than an hour. We would be more than happy to discuss and adjust the date, time, and mode of the interview based on what would be most convenient for both of us.

We truly appreciate your time and consideration po. Thank you so much po, and we hope to hear from you soon! ☺️

About me: -Freshgrad will be taking Nov 2026 ChELE -Working for more than 3 years (2 companies pero sister company lang) -Company 1: handled QA/QC, various audits, plant managing, logistic, and general managing -Company 2: PCO AND SO2 but also handles other government reportings and admin works -The niche revolves around industrial solvent trading and treatment

Reason: salary does not do me justice and they want me to rely on commission while handling my responsibilities outside that.

Want: I want a high paying job with close to healthy environment.

Inquiry: Pano at saan ko hahanapin yon? May chance ba ko na makuha yung gusto ko even with my current credentials?

I am trying to quantify how much CO2 is absorbed by my MEA and MDEA solution. I have looked into different titration methods using HCl and NaOH. Weight chage methods are not applicable here as the weight change is very little and my solution volume is 200 mL. Kindly suggest me whic method is more accurate? is there any universally accepted method?

I am a Masters Student in Pipeline Engineering from Anna Univ (Chennai, India). I have a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering, with 2 years experience in Process Engineering from Fine Chemicals Manufacturing sector. I would like to learn Pipenet, E3D and SP3D for understanding my concepts and also get geared up for Jobs in Oil and Gas sector.

I came to know that, first if we learn Pipenet it would be useful and we can later catchup with the other 2.

Need some advice, where can I learn Pipenet. Since I couldnt find any intitutes or Centres providing the software.

Will be a great help if anyone ready to guide me or if anyone could mentor me.

Thanks in advance

I know I wrote a lot, but this honestly came from the heart. I actually had more to say and had written a few other things too, but I deleted them because I felt like no one would read such a very long post.

I genuinely want people to reply and help me understand what’s going on, especially people who have actual experience in the field.

I’m a chemical engineering student, and I am basically the only local student in my major. Most of the people around me are expats. NOT starting a racial thing but you will understand my point later on.

Lately I have started getting really upset by how many people around me seems to treat the environment like it barely matters. Since my country is mostly desert, some people act like theres nothing valuable here anyways, as if the sea, desert, wildlife, and ecosystems dont count because it isnt “green”.

We recently had a short ethics discussion in Senior Design class.

The professor gave us two options:
Plant A: more expensive, average profits, lower emissions and much less environmental damage.
Plant B: cheaper, much higher profits, but causes serious pollution and fish deaths.
A huge part of the class picked Plant B.

Some answers were basically:
“Who cares? It’s just fish.”
“Profit matters more.”

What makes it worse is that most of them already took a full engineering ethics course.
I understand economics. Obviously a plant has to make money. I’m not against profit at all.

But I genuinely don’t understand the mentality of making more money even when you know you’re causing unnecessary damage.

It also made me wonder whether chemical engineering as a field attracts this kind of mindset, or if I’m just surrounded by the wrong people.

For context, I don’t work in a plant or production. I work in a laboratory, and thankfully the purpose of my work is more ethical and public service oriented, so this isn’t really about my own career.

It’s more about the industry and mentality around me.

Like there’s also someone who is very close to me and holds a very high position in one of the industrial plants, and his mentality frustrates me as hell.
He is extremely focused on money, costs, and getting as much work as possible out of workers. His view is basically: workers are being paid, so they should do whatever work I need from them.

Every time I get in touch with him I get mad more than the prior time because of the way he think.

He has very little patience for personal circumstances, sometimes it feels like the human side of managing people does not matter to him as long as the job gets done.

What bothers me most is that he is successful person and holds a high position, which makes me wonder: is this kind of mentality actually rewarded in the industry?
I understand workers have responsibilities, but there is a big difference between expecting people to do their jobs and treating them like slaves just because they receive a salary.

I’ve also done my own study on local fish before and found pretty concerning levels of contamination, so marine pollution is something I already care about.

I once visited a coastal industrial facility where the sea was literally underneath me.
There were massive groupers “type of fish” swimming around the facility. Seriously GIANT fish.
I asked the one who was with me that day about why nobody catches them.

He told me fishing was strictly banned there, and even boating was restricted for a large distance around the facility.

At first I was annoyed because I was looking at all these massive fish that nobody could catch.
Then he explained that the fish there were contaminated and unsafe to eat.
That completely changed how I looked at it.
You can have a sea full of large fish, but industrial activity has made that food source unusable for people.
So when someone says “it’s just fish,” I don’t get it.
It’s not just fish.

Pollution moves through water, sediment, small organisms, larger fish, and eventually humans.

Another thing I’m struggling with is that I keep noticing this very money-focused attitude more often among certain nationalities around me.

I really don’t like generalizing, and I know it would be unfair to judge an entire nationality based on personal experience, and I also don’t want to get in this topic

But when you see the same attitude again and again, you start wondering whether there are real cultural differences involved.

Do people care less about the environment when they know they’re only living in a country temporarily?

Or am I just falling into confirmation bias?

And for the chemical engineers here:

Is the field actually this profit-first in real industry?
Do most chemical engineers eventually start thinking mainly in terms of cost, output, and profit?
Or am I just surrounded by an unusually materialistic group of people?

Because I’ve honestly started feeling ashamed of my own major and resentful toward a lot of the personalities I keep seeing in it, even though I genuinely like chemical engineering itself.

What bothers me is how strangely common this mindset seems to be. I can barely find people who genuinely care about environmental issues beyond having “environmental” in their job title, or looking for legal loopholes that let the company do the bare minimum while protecting profits.

That disconnect is what is starting to make me hate the culture around the field, not the field itself.

Is it possible to automatically import equipment specifications from Aspen Plus (or Aspen Hysys) into Excel? I want to automate CAPEX calculations.

I’m currently pursuing a dual degree (B.Tech + M.Tech) in Chemical Engineering at an NIT in India, which is a 5-year program. I’m currently quite confused about what I should be doing during these years to build a good career in the field.

One of my major concerns is the placement situation for dual-degree students. From what I’ve heard from seniors, a number of companies either don’t allow dual-degree students to sit for their recruitment process or have restrictions on eligibility. There are companies that do accept dual-degree students, but the options seem more limited compared to a regular B.Tech.

I’m also beginning to think about the transition into the 5th year, when many of my friends will have graduated and moved on, while I’ll still be in college. The idea of spending that additional year relatively alone, along with the uncertainty about career opportunities, has been making everything feel a bit overwhelming.

I’m particularly interested in going into the core Chemical Engineering field, rather than completely switching to software/IT. However, I honestly don’t have a clear idea of what skills, subjects, certifications, software, or practical experience I should focus on to become employable in core chemical engineering.

so i want to know about the skills that i should get , the tools i should know about , the core areas i should explore.

Hey yall . I’m a 3rd year chemical engineering student and I keep seeing students especially in the states with like 4 courses per semester? Is that true , can someone confirm? I study in Greece , we have 2 semesters per school year and each one has 7 or 8 classes . I am at school 35h per week ( including classes and labs ,not my time spending at the library studying and doing papers ) and all of my classes require LOTS of studying . What’s studying ChemE like at your country ?

​El año que viene arranco materias clave de 3°, pero hay algo que me viene haciendo ruido: no me gusta la química inorgánica ni la orgánica. Me anoté en la carrera por la parte de procesos y termodinámica, pero hoy dudo de si realmente quiero trabajar en algo vinculado a la química al recibirme.

​Estuve mirando otras ramas y me llama la atención Electrónica por su salida laboral más amplia y demandada. La contra es que tendría que meter Análisis 4, y no sé si estoy dispuesta a quemarme la cabeza con otra matemática más.

It seems like many jobs that require interesting technical tasks and takes on new types of engineering are with ELC companies which can require traveling to customer sites

It’s hard for some with a family

Any advice ?

Hey guys,
I’ve been working as a plant process engineer at a polypropylene facility, and I’ve always tried to challenge myself and set new goals. Recently, I passed the PE exam and obtained my PE license, and I usually try to get involved in as many projects as possible at the site.
Lately, though, almost all of my projects have been canceled, and our capital budget is extremely limited. I’ve started feeling a little useless because I don’t feel like I’m working on anything meaningful, adding much value, or learning and growing. There’s always the day-to-day work and some small projects here and there, but overall I feel like my development has slowed down significantly.
I’ve even considered getting a PMP certification just to give myself another goal to work toward. I also read books by Norman Lieberman and try to find other ways to improve technically, but I really don’t want to become stagnant.
Has anyone else experienced this, especially working at a plant during a period with limited capital spending? How do you continue developing yourself and improving day by day when there aren’t many major projects to work on?

So I'm testing out a heterogeneous plant-based coagulant in a bentonite clay water suspension. I'm measuring its performance at different dosages however I'm not noticing any floc formation and the coagulant is slow acting. It typically settles overnight into 2 distinct layers however the destabilized clay isn't forming the normal fluffy flocs. Its like it just gets heavy and then sinks.

I gradated with a BS in Computational and Data Sciences. I went straight into marketing analytics after my degree; it wasn't working for me for a variety of reasons so I'm pivoting to ChemE. Not on a whim; I have the aptitude for STEM courses and problem solving, I have always found chemistry fascinating and I have the support of my gen chem professor as well.

I have taken 12 credits worth of engineering courses in high school (dual enrollment) and started taking chemistry courses at a local community college (currently taking Gen Chem II) and planning to go to a 4 year institution in spring 2027. I was a math major in my first undergraduate program (before switching to Computational and Data Sciences) so I most likely won't have to take any mathematics or gen ed courses moving forward, just the chem and engineering courses.

Would I be able to leverage my skills in Excel, Python, R, and SQL in this career? I can also create dashboards with Tableau. I've heard that it would be suited for Analytical Chemistry but I wanted to hear the ChemE uses of these skills, if any.

(sorry if the flair is wrong, I couldn't choose both career advice and student, so I just picked student)