Occupation / job
Archivists
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
The $64,550 midpoint sits $6.98 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 29% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Archivists.
Employment as Archivists stands at 7,970. That is small enough that your local market may have a dozen posts in total; mobility will matter more to your earnings than seniority does.
Library, curatorial and archival work suits people who get satisfaction from making a collection findable, which is invisible labour that only ever gets noticed when it has not been done.
No verified preparation time is on file for Archivists. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $50,680 and a quarter above $83,020: a 1.6x ratio, $32,340 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
Even the 25th percentile pays $50,680, $660 more than the $50,020 typical American job and $24.36 an hour. The floor, not the median, is the strongest financial argument for Archivists.
Avoid it if you need a growing field — the posts are competitive and often the first line cut when a budget tightens.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 7,970 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $64,550 as where you might be after years in Archivists, and $50,680 as where you would start.
In cash terms the middle half of Archivists runs $50,680 to $83,020 — $32,340 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $64,550.
The 75th percentile is $83,020. Reaching it from the $64,550 midpoint is $18,470 a year; reaching it from the $50,680 that the bottom quarter of Archivists earn is $32,340.
From $64,550 it is $13,870 down to the bottom quarter and $18,470 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $31.03 at the midpoint for Archivists, $24.36 at the 25th percentile and $39.91 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Archivists. The self-employed are excluded, so $64,550 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Archivists, the hourly figure is $64,550 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else