I am a civil engineer in local government. Your brother is lucky. While there are some good things (pension, vacation, benefits, paid overtime), we are underpaid, have little flexibility on schedule, and are not permitted to WFH, except in d course for on our own time
Yeah when I read the question, βconstructionβ is definitely not one of the things that came to my mind. The work is simply too demanding, so many people involved, deadlines, work under the sun, in general I think building is hard work. I can see a structural engineer or consultant having a nice life-balance tho.