Are you good at making designs or models?
Can you visualize projects in your mind?
Do you enjoy beautiful and historic buildings?
Are you good with plans and blueprints?
Are you good with your hands?
Would you enjoy designing a park or garden?

If you answered yes to two or more of the questions above, you'll probably 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.

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: preconstruction and design, construction, and maintenance and operations.

Preconstruction and Design
This pathway encompasses all the jobs that are done before a project can be built, including architect, civil engineer, cost estimator, contractor, developer, highway engineer, surveyor, specification writer, and urban planner.

Construction
The construction pathway includes all the jobs involved in actual construction, from demolition to finish carpentry. Jobs include bricklayer, construction worker, demolition worker, heavy equipment operator, drywall installer, mason, lather, floor covering installer, pipefitter, rigger, and welder.

Maintenance and Operations
This pathway contains all the jobs related to maintaining, repairing, and upgrading structures; such as electrician, plumber, painter, HVAC mechanic, building inspector, and architectural historian.

Click here for a visual representation of the architecture and construction career cluster.

Print and Internet Resources

These Print and Internet Resources offer references for career cluster exploration, including trade, professional, and business associations, government departments and agencies, labor unions, and cluster-specific career Web sites.

Architecture and Construction Career Cluster Print and Internet Resources

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