The 15 employers US engineering students most want to work for

• Around 1 in 5 US engineering students in a survey chose Lockheed Martin as an ideal employer.
• That made it the No. 1 employer on Universum's new ranking using what engineering students said.
• General Motors, Apple, and Tesla were part of the top 15.

While the labor market is looking tough for job seekers, some US engineering students are thinking about hopefully landing work at Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, or Nvidia one day.

These places ranked highly on a new ranking about the employers US engineering students most want to work for. Universum, an employer branding specialist, put together the ranking — and similar rankings, such as one focused on what business students said and another focused on what computer science students said — based on how many people in a survey chose them as one of their ideal employers.

The survey of students for these rankings was done from September 2023 to April 2024, and students could name up to five ideal places. The ranking was based on what students chose; students were provided with a list of employers during the survey to select places they would consider working for.

The top five in the list of what US engineering students said were exactly the same as last year's results, including Tesla at No. 5 and Lockheed Martin at No. 1. The share who said Lockheed Martin rose slightly.

Below are the top 15 in the new ranking, along with the share of engineering students who listed each employer among their top five ideal employers.

15. General Motors

Percentage who said this: 6.15%

Rank last year: 11

Last year's percentage: 7.20%

14. Nvidia

Percentage who said this: 6.20%

Rank last year: 27

Last year's percentage: 4.19%

13. Ford Motor Company

Percentage who said this: 6.26%

Rank last year: 14

Last year's percentage: 6.36%

12. Toyota

Percentage who said this: 7.01%

Rank last year: 12

Last year's percentage: 6.97%

11. GE Aerospace

Percentage who said this: 7.14%

Rank last year: N/A

Last year's percentage: N/A

10. Microsoft

Percentage who said this: 7.36%

Rank last year: 10

Last year's percentage: 7.47%

9. Google

Percentage who said this: 9.02%

Rank last year: 8

Last year's percentage: 9.63%

8. Apple

Percentage who said this: 9.63%

Rank last year: 6

Last year's percentage: 10.71%

7. Northrop Grumman

Percentage who said this: 9.69%

Rank last year: 7

Last year's percentage: 9.74%

6. Raytheon Technologies (now RTX Corporation)

Percentage who said this: 10.09%

Rank last year: 9

Last year's percentage: 8.66%

5. Tesla

Percentage who said this: 12.86%

Rank last year: 5

Last year's percentage: 14.24%

4. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Percentage who said this: 15.20%

Rank last year: 4

Last year's percentage: 15.78%

3. Boeing

Percentage who said this: 15.61%

Rank last year: 3

Last year's percentage: 16.67%

2. SpaceX

Percentage who said this: 18.66%

Rank last year: 2

Last year's percentage: 20.20%

1. Lockheed Martin

Percentage who said this: 22.66%

Rank last year: 1

Last year's percentage: 20.60%