Occupation / job
Forest and Conservation 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
Forest and Conservation Technicians pays $54,560 against $50,020 across all occupations, which is $378 a month ahead. A modest premium, and modest premiums are usually attached to modest requirements — check what this one is attached to.
At 30,410 employed, this is a mid-sized occupation. In a normal city that means several possible employers and a genuine market rate, which is the point at which knowing the numbers on this page starts to be worth money.
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 Forest and Conservation Technicians — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The middle half runs $47,360 to $68,600 — $1,770 a month between the quarters, a 1.4x ratio. Spreads this narrow are usually set by a grade or a scale, so the negotiation you are imagining probably is not available.
The bottom quarter of Forest and Conservation Technicians earns under $47,360, which is within $2,660 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. 30,410 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
$47,360 to $68,600 is a 1.4x range. Ranges this tight usually mean the employer set is homogeneous — the same kind of organisation paying the same kind of scale — so the lever you have is geography rather than employer.
Put in money rather than ratios: $47,360 at the 25th percentile, $54,560 at the midpoint, $68,600 at the 75th. $21,240 separates the quarter of Forest and Conservation Technicians at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $68,600, the 75th percentile, is worth $14,040 a year more than the $54,560 midpoint and $21,240 more than the $47,360 a quarter of Forest and Conservation Technicians settle for.
From $54,560 the drop to $47,360 is $7,200 and the climb to $68,600 is $14,040. When the upper half of the range is that much longer, the average is pulled well above the median — which is exactly why this site publishes the median.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $22.76 at the bottom quarter, $26.23 at the midpoint, $32.98 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
The $54,560 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.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $54,560 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