20-Year Prospect
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'...unless, of course, you're a defense engineer.
While this career field isn't growing by leaps and bounds, it directly and indirectly employs something like 3.5 million Americans—that's about one percent of this country's total population.
And these jobs won't disappear because of improvements in technology. In fact, defense engineers embrace change: Who wants to dig trenches and fire cannons when you can design drones? In the last five years, these remote-controlled weapons of war have killed at least 2,400 people. Good on you, defense engineers, for inventing something that keeps American soldiers out of harm's way. Of course, it would be nice if so many of those 2,400 dead weren't civilians.
While technology doesn't frighten defense engineers, there are other things to be terrified of...like budget cuts. As the U.S. government whittles away at spending by the Department of Defense, companies like Lockheed Martin are staying ahead of the game by slashing the number of people they employ and closing down some of their programs.
Will you still be around in twenty years' time? Of course—war is part of the human condition, and you're essential to winning wars. You might find yourself in an industry that's grown smaller, however.