Occupation / job
Chemical Technicians
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
A $60,390 midpoint puts Chemical Technicians $10,370 above the $50,020 typical American job — a 21% premium paid for the training, the licence or the conditions. It is not free money and it disappears the moment you stop meeting the requirement.
Employment stands at 57,540. Chemical Technicians is common enough to be recruited for continuously and specific enough that the experience travels — the combination that makes changing employer a working pay rise.
These roles suit people who want to be in the lab or the field without the grant-writing, and who take the craft of measurement seriously in its own right.
We carry no verified training length for Chemical Technicians — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $48,530 and a quarter above $75,900: a 1.6x ratio, $27,370 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.
The bottom quarter of Chemical Technicians earns under $48,530, which is within $1,490 of the $50,020 typical American job. An occupation whose 25th percentile is level with the national middle has an unusually forgiving downside.
Avoid it if you would resent the ceiling — without the higher degree this role does not usually lead the work.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 57,540 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
1.6x between $48,530 and $75,900 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $60,390 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
In cash terms the middle half of Chemical Technicians runs $48,530 to $75,900 — $27,370 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $60,390.
Getting to $75,900, the 75th percentile, is worth $15,510 a year more than the $60,390 midpoint and $27,370 more than the $48,530 a quarter of Chemical Technicians settle for.
From $60,390 it is $11,860 down to the bottom quarter and $15,510 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $23.33 at the bottom quarter, $29.03 at the midpoint, $36.49 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Chemical Technicians for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $60,390 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $60,390 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else