Drexel University is one of the largest private engineering college in the country. Long ranked as one of the nation's top engineering programs, Penn Engineering College at the University of Pennsylvania offers courses in six academic disciplines and hosts 12 industry institutes or centers. Temple University offers an active student body in classrooms that have student-to-faculty ratios as low as 10 to 1 for some electives. A dozen nationally-recognized student professional engineering organizations help with the job search.

The city projects to have a slight decline in engineering jobs by 2010, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. The Philadelphia-metro area is expected to have 7,088 engineering jobs by 2010 (a net decline of 242 positions). However, some engineering fields are projected to experience growth in the same time frame, including 10.1 percent for computer software and systems software engineers, 11.1 percent for electro-mechanical technicians, and 13.5 percent growth for secondary education engineering teacher positions. Areas of engineering expected to decline in Philadelphia include mechanical engineers (down 11.7 percent) and computer operators (down 28.4 percent).