Geoscience Median Salaries Decline in 2021

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Overall, geoscience median salaries declined by 2% between 2020 and 2021, lagging other science occupa­tions which increased by 4%, but not other engineering occupations which declined by 4%. The greatest increases in median salaries within the geosciences were geoscience civil engineers (+8%), environmental engineers (+5%), and mining and geological engineers (+4%). The largest declines in salaries were for geosci­entists (-11%), environmental engineering technicians (-6%), and atmospheric and space scientists (-5%).

Salaries for geoscience-related occupations (darker colors in the chart) were generally higher than salaries for broad occupational categories (lighter colors in the chart) except for geoscience engineering technician occupations. Other geoscience-related occupations with lower median salaries than broad occupational categories included cartographers and photogramme­trists, soil and plant scientists, conservation scientists, and environmental science technicians.

Median Annual Salaries of Geoscience Occupations, 2021 (Credit: AGI; data derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics)

Broad occupational categories are shown in lighter colors and geoscience-related occupations are shown in darker colors.