The BLS tracks labor force characteristics which includes hours of work. I'm only going to pull out the figures for people who work full time. People who work part time of course work fewer hours so removing them gives a better picture.
Here are the most recent figures by occupation groups:
| Total | 42.4 |
| Management, professional, and related occupations | 43.1 |
| Management, business, and financial operations occupations | 44.4 |
| Professional and related occupations | 42 |
| Service occupations | 41.3 |
| Sales and office occupations | 41.5 |
| Sales and related occupations | 42.9 |
| Office and administrative support occupations | 40.3 |
| Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations(1) | 42.3 |
| Construction and extraction occupations | 41.6 |
| Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations | 42.8 |
| Production, transportation, and material moving occupations | 42.9 |
| Production occupations | 42.2 |
| Transportation and material moving occupations | 43.6 |
And by Industry:
| Total, nonagricultural industries | 42.3 |
| Wage and salary workers(1) | 42.2 |
| Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction | 48.4 |
| Construction | 42.2 |
| Manufacturing | 42.9 |
| Durable goods | 42.9 |
| Nondurable goods | 42.8 |
| Wholesale and retail trade | 42.3 |
| Transportation and utilities | 43.7 |
| Information | 42.5 |
| Financial activities | 42.1 |
| Professional and business services | 42.5 |
| Education and health services | 41.4 |
| Leisure and hospitality | 41.7 |
| Other services | 42.2 |
| Other services, except private households | 42.4 |
| Private households | 40 |
| Public administration | 41.9 |
| Self-employed workers, unincorporated | 43.4 |
What stands out to me is that everyone works over 40 hours average and there mostly aren't huge differences between occupation and industry. Couple exceptions are that the mining industry works 48 hrs and management types tend to work a bit more in the 43-44 range.
I'd like to see the numbers for more specific occupations. Construction occupations might work 41.6 hours but what about roofers or laborers or plumbers specifically? There could be pretty big differences within the broad occupation categories.
I found this bit older 2005 study for hours worked by doctorate holders in the sciences and engineering from the NSF: All In a Week's Work: Workweeks of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers
That shows that the Phds in STEM work 45-50 hours average.
I did find the CNET article Shorter hours in software
Which has a table citing hours per week for software jobs as :
| Self-employed workers, unincorporated | 43.4 |
| Software engineers | 41.5 |
| All US workers | 38.3 |
I suspect that would be all workers rather than just the full time people. I say that because the figure for all workers is 38.3 which is below the 40+ average for full time workers. But then it could be things changed a bit from 2005. But in either case that 41.5 hrs for software engineers isn't astronomical versus any other occupation group or industry.
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