Occupation / job
Forensic Science 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 midpoint of $72,060 against $50,020 means Forensic Science Technicians pays $1,836 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.
19,120 people work as Forensic Science Technicians. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
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.
How long it takes to become one of the 19,120 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $57,830 and a quarter above $94,520: a 1.6x ratio, $36,690 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.
At $57,830, or $27.80 an hour, the 25th percentile sits $7,810 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 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. 19,120 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 $72,060 as where you might be after years in Forensic Science Technicians, and $57,830 as where you would start.
Put in money rather than ratios: $57,830 at the 25th percentile, $72,060 at the midpoint, $94,520 at the 75th. $36,690 separates the quarter of Forensic Science Technicians at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $94,520, the 75th percentile, is worth $22,460 a year more than the $72,060 midpoint and $36,690 more than the $57,830 a quarter of Forensic Science Technicians settle for.
The distance from the midpoint up to $94,520 is $22,460 — well over the $14,230 down to $57,830. Distributions leaning this way mean the median understates what the upper half of Forensic Science Technicians earns, and half the field is in that upper half.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Forensic Science Technicians is $34.64 an hour. The quarters sit at $27.80 and $45.44, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $72,060 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
The hourly number on this page is $72,060 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Forensic Science Technicians, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else