Occupation / job
Physics Teachers, Postsecondary
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
$100,310 is $4,190 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Physics Teachers, Postsecondary are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
13,090 people work as Physics Teachers, Postsecondary. 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 posts suit people who genuinely enjoy explaining a field to people encountering it for the first time, every year, to a new set of them.
No verified preparation time is on file for Physics Teachers, Postsecondary. 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
A quarter of the field earns under $74,050 and a quarter over $132,650: $58,600 between them, a ratio of 1.8x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $74,050 — $35.60 an hour, $24,030 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Physics Teachers, Postsecondary is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you cannot afford a long training period that ends without a guaranteed permanent post.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 13,090 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
At 1.8x, the distribution for Physics Teachers, Postsecondary is open enough that specialisation starts to pay. The distance from $74,050 to $132,650 is mostly what you can do that others in the same title cannot.
In cash terms the middle half of Physics Teachers, Postsecondary runs $74,050 to $132,650 — $58,600 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $100,310.
Getting to $132,650, the 75th percentile, is worth $32,340 a year more than the $100,310 midpoint and $58,600 more than the $74,050 a quarter of Physics Teachers, Postsecondary settle for.
From $100,310 it is $26,260 down to the bottom quarter and $32,340 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $48.22 at the midpoint for Physics Teachers, Postsecondary, $35.60 at the 25th percentile and $63.77 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
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 Physics Teachers, Postsecondary for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $100,310 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Physics Teachers, Postsecondary, the hourly figure is $100,310 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