A SUE technician collects and documents information about buried utilities on engineering and construction projects.
Working within subsurface utility engineering (SUE) — a process the Federal Highway Administration describes as combining civil engineering, surveying and geophysics — they research utility records, designate lines with surface geophysics, survey their positions and expose utilities by vacuum excavation.
The work follows ASCE/UESI/CI 38-22, the current SUE standard.
What is a SUE technician?
A SUE technician is a field specialist who collects and documents information about buried utilities on civil engineering and construction projects.
SUE stands for subsurface utility engineering.
The job sits at the intersection of three disciplines.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) describes SUE as combining civil engineering, surveying and geophysics, using technologies that include vacuum excavation and surface geophysics.
The written standard behind the work is ASCE/UESI/CI 38-22, "Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities," which ASCE released in July 2022 and which replaced the earlier ASCE 38-02.
FHWA notes that ASCE 38-22 makes clear SUE is a process, not a technology.
That framing puts the value on the documented, quality-leveled result rather than on any single instrument.
Search under several variations of the name, too: utility designating technician, utility locating technician and SUE field technician.
FHWA has encouraged the use of SUE on Federal-aid and Federal Lands Highway projects since 1991, and SUE costs are eligible for Federal participation.
FHWA also says SUE has become a routine requirement on highway projects in many states.
What does a SUE technician do on a project?
The duties follow the quality-level ladder the project asks for.
In practice a SUE technician's week can touch every rung of it.
Records work.
The lowest level of utility information comes from existing utility records and interviews with knowledgeable utility personnel, so someone has to pull the plans, read them and ask the right questions.
Surveying visible features.
QL-C adds a surface survey of above-ground utility features — manholes, valves, hydrants — correlated with the records.
Designating.
QL-B applies surface geophysical methods to record approximate horizontal positions (sometimes vertical): electromagnetic locating instruments, ground penetrating radar, radar tomography, metal detectors and optical instruments.
FHWA calls this activity "designating," and the information is surveyed to project control.
Test holes.
QL-A physically exposes the utility by non-destructive soft digging — vacuum excavation or hand digging — to capture precise horizontal and vertical positions.
FHWA calls this "locating."
Markings.
For field marks, the Common Ground Alliance recommends the APWA uniform color code (ANSI Z535.1).
CGA notes the code is not intended to preempt any state requirement that specifies other colors.
Pink covers temporary survey markings, red electric, yellow gas, oil, steam and petroleum, orange communication, alarm or signal lines, blue potable water, purple reclaimed water, irrigation and slurry lines, and green sewers and drain lines.
The information matters downstream, too.
Under OSHA's excavation standard, the estimated location of underground utilities must be determined before an excavation is opened, and the utility owners must be contacted.
SUE technician vs 811 utility locator: what is different?
Both jobs find buried utilities, but the trigger, the certainty and the customer are different.
811 is the national call-before-you-dig number.
A caller is connected to their state 811 center, receives a ticket number, and utilities send out locators to mark the approximate location of buried lines with paint or flags.
Response times are set by state law — generally a few days — and Call811 says the digger must confirm that all utilities have responded before digging.
The excavator marks the proposed dig site in white as well: under CGA white-lining guidance, dashes about 6 to 12 inches long and 1 inch wide, spaced about 4 to 50 feet apart.
811 marks are approximate, so the excavator observes a tolerance zone around each marked facility: CGA Best Practice 5-19 sets it at the facility width plus 18 inches on either side of the outside edge of the marked facility, and states may specify more.
SUE work starts from a design or construction project instead of a dig ticket.
The project owner dictates the required quality levels and the effort the SUE provider spends on each.
Where a project needs more certainty than approximate marks, SUE steps up: QL-B designating is surveyed to project control, and QL-A delivers precise horizontal and vertical positions from physical exposure.
Watch the words, because the same vocabulary covers different certainty.
FHWA uses "designating" for QL-B geophysics and "locating" for QL-A exposure, while one-call work also sends "locators."
An approximate paint mark and a vacuum-exposed, surveyed test hole are not the same product.
What are the SUE quality levels a technician works to?
ASCE 38-22 and FHWA's summary of it recognize four quality levels of underground utility information, from QL-D (the lowest) to QL-A (the highest).
Each level is a statement about how the data was obtained — and therefore how much it can be trusted.
| Level | Where the data comes from | The technician's activity |
|---|---|---|
| QL-D | Existing utility records and verbal recollections | Records research and interviews |
| QL-C | Visible, above-ground features correlated with records | Surveying manholes, valve boxes, hydrants |
| QL-B | Surface geophysical methods — approximate horizontal (sometimes vertical) positions | "Designating" with EM locators, GPR and related instruments; data surveyed to project control |
| QL-A | Physical exposure by non-destructive soft digging | "Locating" — vacuum excavation or hand digging for precise horizontal and vertical positions |
FHWA says QL-C is probably the most commonly used level of information, and cautions that at that level it is not unusual to find many utilities omitted or wrongly plotted.
That gap is what QL-B designating and QL-A test holes are for — and per CGA Best Practice 2-14, it is the project owner who dictates which levels a job requires and how much effort the SUE provider spends on each.
Documentation has its own standard.
ASCE released ASCE 75-22, "Standard Guideline for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data," alongside 38-22 as a companion for as-built and as-constructed records of new or relocated utilities.
Standards change — confirm the edition
How do you become a SUE technician?
Our research found no degree program that targets the SUE technician title specifically — the skill set spans records research, surveying, geophysics and safe excavation exposure, so people arrive from several directions.
What matters is what you can document: build the capabilities in an order that matches the quality levels.
Learn the records side first
QL-D and QL-C work is records research, interviews and surveying visible features. Reading utility plans and tying surface features to data is the foundation the higher levels sit on.Train on the geophysical toolkit
QL-B designating runs on electromagnetic locating instruments, ground penetrating radar and related surface geophysical methods. Get hands-on time with the instruments, not just the manuals.Get trained — and keep the documentation
CGA Best Practice 4-5 says locators should be trained, with the training documented: locating theory, equipment, plant recognition, OSHA safety, written and field testing, and annual retesting. It names NULCA's Locator Training Standards and Practices as an accepted industry model.Learn the markings and the damage-prevention frame
Know the APWA/CGA color code cold, and understand how 811 tickets, approximate marks and tolerance zones work — SUE data shares the ground with that system on real sites.Work up the quality levels
QL-A test holes add vacuum excavation and hand digging for precise positions. Each rung you can document — records, feature survey, designating, exposure — adds to the work you can take on.
Two habits make the whole path faster.
First, treat every deliverable as a quality-leveled product: the point of the quality levels is that the data carries a known basis, so say how each position was obtained.
Second, keep the safety context in view — under OSHA's excavation standard, the estimated location of underground utilities must be determined before an excavation is opened, and the utility owners must be contacted.
Your documentation serves projects that have to make that determination.
How much do SUE technicians make?
Our research found no government pay statistic for this title — we found no Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation series for SUE technicians — so no national median can honestly describe the role, and this page quotes none.
Without a national table, the quality levels are a good lens for reading a posting.
Records research, surveying visible features, geophysical designating to project control and vacuum-excavated test holes are different capabilities — and a posting that names its quality levels tells you which of them the job actually uses.
Compare offers on the work itself: which quality levels you will run, which instruments you will operate, how much travel the job carries and how field time is compensated.
Those terms live in the posting, not in a national table.
And read the duties, not the label.
"Utility locator," "designating technician" and "SUE technician" postings can describe very different scopes under a similar family of names.
Find SUE technician jobs
Search under several titles — SUE technician, subsurface utility engineering technician, utility designating technician, utility locating technician and SUE field technician — so one naming convention doesn't hide the rest.
Public highway work is one demand driver: FHWA describes SUE as a routine requirement on highway projects in many states, and has encouraged SUE on Federal-aid and Federal Lands Highway projects since 1991.
Current openings are on the SUE technician jobs board.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice. Standards and rules change — confirm the current edition with the bodies named here: ASCE, the Common Ground Alliance, FHWA and OSHA.