Occupation / job
Epidemiologists
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
$87,220 against a $50,020 national midpoint is 74% more, or $17.88 an hour. Almost nothing pays this much more without a long, expensive or restricted route in — read that route before reading the number again.
Nationally 12,090 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Epidemiologists is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.
Life science work suits people who can run a protocol faithfully for months and treat a negative result as information rather than as a wasted season.
No verified preparation time is on file for Epidemiologists. 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
$71,090 to $112,640 — 1.6x, or $3,462 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for Epidemiologists is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
Even at the 25th percentile Epidemiologists pays $71,090, $21,070 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
Avoid it if a career built on renewable funding would be too precarious for your circumstances.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 12,090 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 $87,220 as where you might be after years in Epidemiologists, and $71,090 as where you would start.
In cash terms the middle half of Epidemiologists runs $71,090 to $112,640 — $41,550 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $87,220.
Getting to $112,640, the 75th percentile, is worth $25,420 a year more than the $87,220 midpoint and $41,550 more than the $71,090 a quarter of Epidemiologists settle for.
It is $16,130 from $87,220 down to $71,090 but $25,420 up to $112,640. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Epidemiologists is $41.93 an hour. The quarters sit at $34.17 and $54.15, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Epidemiologists. The self-employed are excluded, so $87,220 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Epidemiologists, the hourly figure is $87,220 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