Program Overview

Overview

The Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering (PhD) is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the natural and built environment. It is a broad field made up of several sub-disciplines, including environmental engineering, construction engineering, geotechnical engineering, hydrotechnical engineering, materials engineering, structural engineering, and transportation engineering.

Program Details

• Faculty: Faculty of Applied Science
• Academic Unit: Department of Civil Engineering
• Specialization: Civil Engineering
• Mode of Delivery: In person at UBC Vancouver
• Program Components: Dissertation
• Tuition (First Year):
  • Domestic: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• Median Funding: 50% of students receive $39,763 or more funding per year in the first 4 years, before tuition and fees

Admission Information & Requirements

Check Eligibility

• Minimum Academic Requirements: The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC).
• English Language Test: Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application.
  • TOEFL: Overall score requirement: 100
    • Reading: 22
    • Writing: 25
    • Speaking: 21
    • Listening: 22
  • IELTS: Overall score requirement: 7.0
    • Reading: 6.5
    • Writing: 6.5
    • Speaking: 6.5
    • Listening: 6.5
• Other Test Scores: The GRE is optional.

Meet Deadlines

• Program Name: Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering (PhD)
• Intake: September 2026
• Canadian Applicant Deadline: 31 January 2026
• International Applicant Deadline: 31 January 2026

Prepare Application

• Transcripts: All applicants have to submit transcripts from all past post-secondary study.
• Letters of Reference: Applicants have to submit 3 references to apply to this graduate program.
• Statement of Interest: Many programs require a statement of interest, sometimes called a "statement of intent", "description of research interests" or something similar.
• Supervision: Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor.

Research Information

Research Focus

• Civil Engineering Materials
• Environmental Engineering (Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Geo-Environmental, Pollution Control & Wastewater Management)
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Hydrotechnical Engineering
• Project & Construction Management
• Structural Engineering (Earthquake Engineering)
• Transportation Engineering

Tuition & Financial Support

Tuition

Financial Support

• Program Funding Packages: From September 2024, all full-time students in UBC-Vancouver PhD programs will be provided with a funding package of at least $24,000 for each of the first four years of their PhD.
• Funding Statistics: Based on the criteria outlined below, 47 students within this program were included in this study because they received funding through UBC in the form of teaching, research, academic assistantships or internal or external awards with a mean of $38,529 and a median of $39,763.

Career Outcomes

• Graduates: 96 students graduated between 2005 and 2013. For the remaining 83 graduates:
  • RI (Research-Intensive) Faculty: typically tenure-track faculty positions
  • TI (Teaching-Intensive) Faculty: typically full-time faculty positions in colleges or in institutions not granting PhDs
  • Term Faculty: faculty in term appointments
• Sample Employers in Higher Education:
  • University of British Columbia
  • British Columbia Institute of Technology
  • University of Lethbridge
• Sample Employers Outside Higher Education:
  • BC Hydro
  • Golder Associates
  • City of Vancouver
• Sample Job Titles Outside Higher Education:
  • Senior Geotechnical Engineer
  • President
  • Senior Project Engineer
  • Engineer
  • Structural Engineer

Research Supervisors

• Supervision: Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor.
• Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for this program: Applicants should browse faculty profiles and indicate in their application who they are interested in working with.

Sample Thesis Submissions

• Exploratory hydromechanical consequences of internal instability in idealized gap-graded Bennett South Moraine sands
• A laboratory study of internal instability in widely graded sand and gravel
• Rapid genomic monitoring of municipal wastewater and treatment facilities with Nanopore sequencing
• Engineering membrane wettability for industrial wastewater reclamation

Related Programs

• Same Specialization:
  • Master of Applied Science in Civil Engineering (MASc)
  • Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering (MEng)
• Same Academic Unit:
  • Master of Applied Science in Civil Engineering (MASc)
  • Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering (MEng)
  • Master of Engineering Leadership in Integrated Water Management (MEL)
• At the UBC Okanagan Campus:
  • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Engineering

Further Information

• Specialization: Civil Engineering
• UBC Calendar: graduate-and-postdoctoral-studies/degree-programs/civil-engineering
• Program Website:
• Faculty: Faculty of Applied Science
• Academic Unit: Department of Civil Engineering
• Program Identifier: VGDPHD-ED
• Classification: Engineering and technology » Civil engineering, maritime engineering, transport engineering, and mining engineering » Civil engineering

Enrolment, Duration & Other Stats

• Enrolment Data:
  • Applications: 90 (2023), 102 (2022), 123 (2021), 114 (2020), 122 (2019)
  • Offers: 16 (2023), 13 (2022), 22 (2021), 20 (2020), 12 (2019)
  • New Enrolment: 10 (2023), 7 (2022), 17 (2021), 16 (2020), 11 (2019)
  • Total Enrolment: 79 (2023), 81 (2022), 81 (2021), 78 (2020), 71 (2019)
• Completion Rates & Times:
  • Graduation rate: 70% based on 47 students admitted between 2011 - 2014
  • Minimum time to completion: 2.05 years
  • Maximum time to completion: 9.91 years
  • Average time to completion: 5.9 years

Alumni on Success

• Freddy Pina: President, PBRV Consulting Ltd.
• Rubaiya Rumman: Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering (PhD), Wood fly ash-based self-healing concrete using encapsulated chemical agents