Occupation / job
Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other
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
The $62,280 midpoint sits $5.89 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 25% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other.
Employment stands at 73,910. Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other is common enough to be recruited for continuously and specific enough that the experience travels — the combination that makes changing employer a working pay rise.
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.
No verified preparation time is on file for Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other. 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
From $48,030 to $79,780 is $2,645 a month, or 1.7x 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.
At $48,030 — $23.09 an hour — the 25th percentile of this field sits essentially at the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Being in the bottom quarter of Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other still means being paid like the average American worker.
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. 73,910 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
1.7x between $48,030 and $79,780 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $62,280 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
In cash terms the middle half of Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other runs $48,030 to $79,780 — $31,750 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $62,280.
Getting to $79,780, the 75th percentile, is worth $17,500 a year more than the $62,280 midpoint and $31,750 more than the $48,030 a quarter of Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other settle for.
From $62,280 it is $14,250 down to the bottom quarter and $17,500 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $23.09 at the bottom quarter, $29.94 at the midpoint, $38.35 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
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $62,280 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $62,280 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other, 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