Occupation / job
Surveyors
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
Surveyors pays $75,440 at the midpoint, 51% above the $50,020 national figure. Premiums that size are rationed by something; find out what before the salary does your thinking for you.
Employment stands at 50,830. Surveyors 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.
Architecture, surveying and cartography suit people who think in space and can hold a design against a code, a boundary or a survey that does not negotiate.
No verified preparation time is on file for Surveyors. 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 earn below $58,170 and a quarter above $98,130: a 1.7x ratio, $39,960 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 $58,170, or $27.96 an hour, the 25th percentile sits $8,150 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 dislike being constrained by code, boundary and client budget — those three decide most of what gets built.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 50,830 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 1.7x between $58,170 and $98,130 this is a normally shaped occupation. $75,440 is what the middle of Surveyors earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
In cash terms the middle half of Surveyors runs $58,170 to $98,130 — $39,960 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $75,440.
Between $58,170 and $98,130 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $75,440. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $22,690; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $39,960.
The climb from $75,440 to $98,130 is $22,690; the drop to $58,170 is $17,270. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Surveyors and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Surveyors is $36.26 an hour. The quarters sit at $27.96 and $47.17, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
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 Surveyors for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $75,440 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Surveyors, the hourly figure is $75,440 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