Atmospheric and Space Scientists Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Percentiles answer the question a single average cannot: where would a given Atmospheric and Space Scientists offer sit among all 8,780 workers doing this job? The survey top-codes at $239,200+ and withholds unreliable cells, shown as n/p in the table.

Employment and concentration

May 2024 employment stood at 8,780, or 0.01% of the U.S. total. Colorado leads the state table with 950 jobs; the top three states sum to 25.5% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Alaska posts a location quotient of 9.87, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.

The spread matters as much as the center. Earners at the 90th percentile make $160,710, which is 3.2 times the $49,990 at the 10th, a difference of $110,720 annually. Because the mean wage ($103,980) sits above the median ($97,450), a typical offer should be judged against the median and the 25th to 75th percentile band, not the mean.

Pay by state

The state spread for Atmospheric and Space Scientists runs from the $122,180 median in Hawaii down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in Colorado (950 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Atmospheric and Space Scientists stands number 700 by employment and number 137 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations, the group median wage is $84,150 across 48 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 16% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.6% of the group's 1,446,780 jobs. In 21 of the 44 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $97,450, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV is the largest metro employer with 590 jobs, 6.7% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $131,840 a year, against $131,840 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $97,450 works out to $8,121 a month before taxes, $3,748 per biweekly paycheck, and $1,874 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($69,440) to the 75th ($128,940) is worth $59,500 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $107,195 would sit between the median ($97,450) and the 75th percentile ($128,940), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $69,440, is $28,010 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Food Science Technicians, Epidemiologists, Geological Technicians, Except Hydrologic Technicians, Foresters, Materials Scientists, Anthropologists and Archeologists. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.