Occupation / job
Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary
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
$93,250 is $3,602 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
Employment as Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary is 19,980 nationally. At that size a large city holds a working market and a small one holds almost none, so where you live changes the number of employers available to you by an order of magnitude.
This work suits people who want to spend a career inside one subject, teaching it while contributing to it, and who can tolerate an institution whose incentives do not always favour either.
We carry no verified training length for Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
$58,750 separates the bottom quarter of Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary at $68,530 from the top quarter at $127,280. At a 1.9x ratio the midpoint is a weak guide to your own first year — find out which end you would be entering at.
At $68,530, or $32.94 an hour, the 25th percentile sits $18,510 above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Occupations with floors this high almost always have a requirement holding them there.
Avoid it if you need a permanent post at the end; a great deal of this teaching is done on contracts that are not.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 19,980 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
At 1.9x, the distribution for Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary is open enough that specialisation starts to pay. The distance from $68,530 to $127,280 is mostly what you can do that others in the same title cannot.
Put in money rather than ratios: $68,530 at the 25th percentile, $93,250 at the midpoint, $127,280 at the 75th. $58,750 separates the quarter of Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $127,280, the 75th percentile, is worth $34,030 a year more than the $93,250 midpoint and $58,750 more than the $68,530 a quarter of Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary settle for.
$34,030 separates $93,250 from the $127,280 top quarter, while only $24,720 separates it from $68,530. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $44.83 at the midpoint for Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary, $32.94 at the 25th percentile and $61.19 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
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 Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $93,250 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Chemistry Teachers, Postsecondary, the hourly figure is $93,250 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