Occupation / job
Hydrologic 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 $64,790 midpoint puts Hydrologic Technicians $14,770 above the $50,020 typical American job — a 30% 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.
With 2,840 employed nationally, Hydrologic Technicians is a small occupation. Small occupations are quiet: few postings, slow turnover, and a real chance that the person you would replace is not going anywhere.
Science technician roles suit people who want laboratory or field work without a doctorate, and who take real satisfaction in a run that went exactly as the protocol said.
We carry no verified training length for Hydrologic Technicians — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
From $52,040 to $84,680 is $2,720 a month, or 1.6x bottom quarter to top. An ordinary spread like this is mostly years and geography; assume you enter near the bottom of it and that closing the gap takes a career rather than a move.
The bottom quarter of Hydrologic Technicians still clears $52,040 — $2,020 above the $50,020 typical job. A high floor is the most valuable and least advertised property an occupation can have.
Avoid it if you want to set the research question; the technician role executes a protocol it did not choose.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 2,840 figure counts people already working as Hydrologic Technicians, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
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 $64,790 as where you might be after years in Hydrologic Technicians, and $52,040 as where you would start.
The middle half of this field earns between $52,040 and $84,680. That is $32,640 of range, with $64,790 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $84,680. Reaching it from the $64,790 midpoint is $19,890 a year; reaching it from the $52,040 that the bottom quarter of Hydrologic Technicians earn is $32,640.
It is $12,750 from $64,790 down to $52,040 but $19,890 up to $84,680. 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 Hydrologic Technicians is $31.14 an hour. The quarters sit at $25.01 and $40.71, 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 Hydrologic Technicians. The self-employed are excluded, so $64,790 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $64,790 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