Types of Drafting Jobs

As a drafter, you'll work with designers and machinists to make diagrams and plans of working machinery, homes, city and site plans. Drafting allows for a lot of variety, as there is more than one type of drafting job.

Architectural

An architectural drafter works with homeowners, business owners and architects to help create buildable drawings for homes, offices and other buildings. Although an architectural drafter does not have the authority of an architect to stamp plans for approval before building starts, an architectural drafter is used by the architect to do much of the preliminary design work. The average salary is around $40,000 per year, according to simplyhired.com.

Civil

A civil drafter works closely with an engineer to help draw site plans, topographical maps and other diagrams used in an engineer's calculations. A civil drafter will take information provided by the engineer, such as maps, and surveys, and create readable cross-sections and plans so an engineer can plan buildings and repurpose land with the right information at his fingertips. A civil engineer can make about $47,000 per year, according to simplyhired.com.

Mechanical

A mechanical drafter takes diagrams of machines and drafts them into readable, buildable plans. They also use those plans to decipher what parts will be needed to build those machines, and their blueprints then become maps to the inner workings of machines. Mechanical drafters are responsible for laying out the cross sections of connections. A mechanical drafter will make about $48,000 per year.

Structural

A structural drafter is responsible for breaking down a building into its inner-workings, to show an engineer all of the components, so the engineer can engineer the materials it will need and calculate how to make the building safe. A structural drafter looks at a building and sees all of the steel, connectors and the inner structure, and draws plans to that effect. Structural drafters average $48,000 per year.

Conceptual

Conceptual drafters take the ideas from others and draw them on computers. A conceptual drafter often does not have to be concerned with how the structure will be built or if it is possible, but is instead responsible for innovative ideas. A conceptual drafter is always looking for new architectural design, and uses her skill to show what a building could look like. She also utilizes 3D programming like Revit and DSMax. She'll average $63,000 per year.