How to hire a SUE / utility designating technician: requirements, pay to offer, where to find them and how to screen

A utility designating technician is the seat that produces the ground truth under your firm’s SUE scopes. The technician sweeps a site with surface geophysical instruments to record the approximate horizontal position of buried utilities, then hands that data to the survey side to be tied to project control. FHWA describes SUE as combining civil engineering, surveying and geophysics, using technologies that include vacuum excavation and surface geophysics.

The work follows a standard you can name: ASCE/UESI/CI 38-22, “Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities,” released by ASCE in July 2022, which replaced ASCE 38-02. FHWA’s summary of ASCE 38 counts four quality levels of utility information, from QL-D (the lowest) to QL-A (the highest). And ASCE 38-22 itself makes a point your job ad should absorb: FHWA notes the standard makes clear that SUE is a process, not a technology. You are hiring someone to execute a documented process, not just to carry a locator.

Which version of the seat you need depends on the quality levels your scopes actually carry. QL-D is utility information from existing records or verbal recollection; QL-C adds surveyed visible above-ground features — manholes, valve boxes, hydrants — correlated with those records. QL-B is the designating work: surface geophysical methods such as EM locators and ground penetrating radar, recording approximate horizontal positions that get surveyed to project control. QL-A adds physical exposure of the utility by vacuum excavation or hand digging for precise horizontal and vertical position, which FHWA calls “locating.” Per CGA Best Practice 2-14, the project owner dictates the required quality levels and the amount of effort the SUE provider spends on each. Read your last year of proposals before you write the ad — the technician a QL-B designating program needs is not the same hire as one whose scopes mostly collect records and survey visible features.

The market logic behind the seat: FHWA calls QL-C probably the most commonly used quality level, and notes it is not unusual to find many utilities omitted or wrongly plotted at that level. That gap between records and reality is what your designating data closes. FHWA says SUE has become a routine requirement on highway projects in many states, and the agency has encouraged SUE on Federal-aid highway projects since 1991, with SUE costs eligible for Federal participation.

Do not blur the seat with a one-call locator hire. 811 is the national call-before-you-dig number: callers reach their state 811 center, and utilities send locators to mark approximate locations of buried lines with paint or flags. Read FHWA’s terms against that 811 description and the worlds separate — designating is QL-B geophysics surveyed to control, while a one-call locate mark is an approximate paint mark for excavator safety, not a QL-A result. If you are hiring utility locators out of one-call work, the instrument skills transfer; the documentation, the survey-to-control step and the standard of care do not, so screen for the difference rather than assuming it.

Be as honest about the physical reality as about the technical one. Our research found no BLS occupation for SUE work, so the nearest reference is a related occupation that does not cover it. BLS describes fieldwork for surveying and mapping technicians as standing for long periods, walking considerable distances over harsh terrain and climbing hills with heavy packs of equipment, in all types of weather. BLS also says most of those technicians work full time, and some work more than 40 hours per week. If your SUE crews travel or run overrun seasons, the ad is the place to say it.

For the worker-side view of the job — the instruments, the day-to-day, the career path — see what a SUE / utility designating technician does. This page stays on the employer’s side, and the hub on hiring for your survey firm works through the crew-mix decision around the seat.

The seat itself is a technician hire, not the licensed one. Our research found no BLS occupation for SUE work. BLS’s profile for surveying and mapping technicians, a related occupation that does not cover SUE work, lists a high school diploma and moderate-term on-the-job training as their typical entry bar. It notes that licensing is not required for those workers, and that employers may prefer candidates with a valid driver’s license. Treat that as a reference point, not the SUE seat’s own bar. What separates a strong SUE candidate from a generic crew hire is documented locator training, instrument depth, and enough surveying to tie designations to control.

The license line runs above the seat, and it is the line to get right before you write a scope. FHWA says those in responsible charge of SUE work who certify deliverables should be engineers, geologists or land surveyors, per state registration requirements. Under the NCEES Model Law — the template states adapt, not any state’s law itself — responsible charge means direct control and personal supervision. The Model Law also says unlicensed employees may do surveying work that includes no final surveying decisions when it is done under the responsible charge of, and verified by, a licensee. Your technician designates; your licensee takes responsible charge and certifies the deliverable. Each state writes its own version of that line, so confirm it with your state licensing board before the seat’s scope goes into a contract or an ad.

On certifications, be precise about what exists. Our research found no ASCE-run individual SUE certification — FHWA’s SUE factsheet cites ASCE’s standards, not a personal credential. What exists is Nulca’s training ecosystem: Nulca publishes a Competency Standard for training utility locators, first issued in 1996, which underpins the Nulca accreditation program launched in March 2016 with NSF. Nulca Accreditation is an organizational accreditation of a member company’s locator training program, audited by NSF-ISR against the 10 components of the Competence Standard, with the Verification Statement valid for three years. That shape matters when you write the ad: the accreditation attaches to the employer’s training program, not to the individual, and our research did not confirm any individual Nulca certification levels. Treat a stint at an accredited locator employer as a signal about the training the person received, and verify the rest in the field.

Screen for documented training wherever the candidate came from. CGA Best Practice 4-5 says locators should be trained and that the training should be documented, covering items such as locating theory, equipment, plant recognition, OSHA safety, written and field testing and annual retesting. The same practice names Nulca’s Locator Training Standards and Practices as an accepted industry model. A candidate who can produce training records and describe their last retest is showing you the exact habit this seat runs on.

Two knowledge checks are cheap to ask for at screening. Utility color fluency is one. Under the APWA uniform color code adopted by the CGA, pink marks temporary survey markings, red electric, yellow gas, oil, steam and petroleum, orange communication, alarm and signal lines, blue potable water, purple reclaimed water, green sewers and drain lines, and white proposed excavation. A candidate who marks and reads colors consistently is demonstrating plant recognition. The CGA notes the code is not intended to preempt any existing state requirement that specifies other colors, so check local practice too. The second check is quality-level vocabulary: a candidate who can explain what QL-B delivers — and what it does not — is speaking the standard your contracts cite.

Start from the uncomfortable fact: our research found no BLS wage for SUE technicians — no occupation series is published under the title. Surveyors and surveying and mapping technicians have theirs; there is no federal median to quote for this seat and no percentile table to lean on. Any dollar figure you see attached to the title is somebody’s posting or somebody’s payroll — treat it as that employer’s number, not an industry statistic.

Build the range from inputs you can name instead. The first is your own pay structure: the crew seats whose skills this one overlaps — instrument operators and party chiefs on your side of the industry — and where this seat sits against them. The seat adds geophysics and documentation depth to crew field work, and your range should say so. The second is your market: what SUE providers, utility-locating contractors and engineering firms with utility departments advertise in the geography you hire in. The third is your contract reality: what your scopes bill for designating effort, which sets the ceiling the seat’s pay has to fit under.

Quote the result as your firm’s number. A range built from named inputs is defensible in an offer conversation; a blended “market rate” you cannot source is not, and it collapses the first time a candidate shows you a competing offer. For the method — which pay sources exist, what each one measures, and how to build a scale your offers can cite — see building a survey pay scale.

Cost the seat past base pay before the range goes public. Settle the seat’s overtime treatment before you post — the classification question is fact-specific, so confirm it for how the seat actually works with the Wage and Hour Division or counsel rather than assuming it from the title. Add travel policy if the seat moves between sites, vehicle arrangements, and benefits. Those lines are part of what makes the offer competitive, and they belong in your internal number first.

Your own crew is the first place to look. A technician or instrument operator who already runs your survey workflow needs the geophysics half added, not the surveying half built from scratch. A documented internal training plan modeled on the CGA’s list — locating theory, equipment, plant recognition, safety, written and field testing, retested on a cycle — gives you a pipeline you own instead of one you rent.

If you are hiring utility locators from outside instead of cross-training your own, look first at SUE providers and utility-locating contractors — their people arrive with locator hours. One-call locator crews are the adjacent pool — the instrument work overlaps, and the documentation gap to screen for is covered in the first section. Rounding out the pool: GIS and mapping staff open to field time, civil engineering and geophysics graduates, and veterans with electronics or instrument experience.

Write the ad to the seat, not the title. Use both names candidates search — SUE technician and utility designating technician — name the instruments actually in your trucks, state which quality levels your scopes carry, and split the work between designating and any exposure work. Say where the seat sits on your crew, who reviews the data, and what travel looks like. For ad mechanics and wording, see writing a surveying job ad.

Then post where these candidates already look — the niche and society channels survey people read, plus the general boards. For the channel-by-channel comparison, see where to post the job. The seat also has a listing page candidates check directly: see open SUE technician jobs the way candidates see them.

Screen on the two halves the seat runs on: instrument craft, and documentation discipline. A resume claims both, and a short structured exercise verifies them — it also separates the one-call locator from the designating technician faster than any interview question.

Build the field test from the seat’s first week. Run a live designate on a section of known utility — an exposed service your crew locates in advance, or a test bed you set up. Watch the sequence: how they set up and calibrate the instrument, how they sweep, how they mark, and what they write down. Then ask them to walk their reading into your deliverable: what gets surveyed to control, what the field record has to show, and which quality level the data supports. A candidate who can narrate that handoff has done the job; one who stops at “the machine beeped” has only carried it.

Add knowledge checks against the standard, not against trivia. Ask what changes in the effort between quality levels and who decides which level a project carries — the answer that lands is the project owner’s, per CGA Best Practice 2-14. Ask what QL-B delivers: approximate horizontal position from surface geophysical methods, surveyed to project control — and what it does not deliver: it is not exposure, and it is not the precise horizontal and vertical position that comes from physically exposing the line. Four quality levels, QL-D through QL-A, should come back without prompting.

Then judgment scenarios, because the seat’s value is knowing when the reading is lying. Give the candidate one of these: a designate that contradicts the utility records; a signal that reads differently on a second pass; a marked line where nothing appears on any map; a contractor who says your mark is wrong while the excavator is already rolling. Listen for the habits: verifying before trusting one pass, stopping and escalating to the engineer or the licensee instead of guessing, and keeping notes complete enough that someone else could defend the data long after the job moved on.

Close with the training record. Ask what training the candidate has had, whether it was documented, and when they were last retested — the CGA’s model list of locating theory, equipment, plant recognition, OSHA safety, written and field testing and annual retesting gives you a checklist to score against. If a candidate credits an employer’s Nulca-accredited program, remember the accreditation attaches to the company’s training program, verified for three-year terms — so confirm the employer, and let the field test carry the rest.

Keep the process consistent: the same exercise for every candidate, scored the same way, and every question on the work and the candidate’s record of doing it. If the seat puts a firm truck in the person’s hands, run the driving-record check through the same process you use for your crew hires.

Plan the timeline honestly: our research found no published time-to-fill benchmark for survey firms, and we will not invent one. What you control is the queue — seat and quality levels defined, pay range built from named inputs, field test constructed before the posting goes up. A cross-train from your own crew is the fastest path when the aptitude is there, because the surveying half is already on your payroll. An outside locator hire needs the documentation and survey-to-control half built, and that is training time rather than recruiting time.

Structure the ramp around the licensed line from the second section: pair the new technician with the party chief, put the field record format in their hands on day one, and keep the licensee’s review of the data visible from the first job. For the first-week structure, see onboarding new survey employees.

Keeping the seat is cheaper than re-running the hire, and the levers are the ones that recruited them. Fund the training cycle and put it on a schedule — annual retesting is part of the CGA’s model practice, and a documented cycle gives your technician a visible ladder and your firm a record you can hand to a client. Review pay against the inputs you set in the pay section, not against whatever the last competing offer was. In an instrument-driven seat, maintained equipment is a retention tool.

Schedule honesty is the last lever: if your SUE season runs overruns, say it in the ad, handle the pay correctly, and staff to it. For the longer playbook on keeping field staff, see our guide to keeping survey crews.

Employer information, not legal, tax or licensing advice; confirm the licensure and supervision rules that bind your firm with your state licensing board, and pay and classification questions with the Wage and Hour Division or counsel as the question needs.