---
title: "Carbon Removal Project Developer"
description: "Builds projects that pull carbon dioxide out of the air, such as direct air capture plants or enhanced rock weathering, and turns them into verified…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/carbon-removal-project-developer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Carbon Removal Project Developer

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1082 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1082.00

Builds projects that pull carbon dioxide out of the air, such as direct air capture plants or enhanced rock weathering, and turns them into verified, sellable carbon removal credits.

Also advertised as: Carbon Dioxide Removal Project Developer; CDR Project Manager; Carbon Project Developer; Carbon Removal Project Manager; Direct Air Capture Project Developer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $102,320 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $49.19/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $61,580 to $167,970, with the middle half between $78,440 and $133,100
- **Total US employment:** 1,066,670
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 76,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 19/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,066,670 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $61,580 |
| 25th | $78,440 |
| 50th (median) | $102,320 |
| 75th | $133,100 |
| 90th | $167,970 |
| Mean (average) | $110,740 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $124,160 | $116,023 | 36,240 |
| NJ | $122,980 | $113,028 | 28,300 |
| DE | $122,190 | $122,425 | 1,770 |
| NY | $121,040 | $112,156 | 68,020 |
| CA | $120,910 | $109,203 | 114,380 |
| VA | $120,840 | $119,520 | 43,860 |
| MA | $114,190 | $107,974 | 21,960 |
| CO | $110,050 | $106,791 | 32,390 |
| NM | $106,970 | $116,004 | 4,330 |
| OR | $105,480 | $102,050 | 19,380 |
| CT | $105,240 | $101,573 | 8,410 |
| DC | $104,900 | $95,450 | 5,170 |
| RI | $104,680 | $102,346 | 3,880 |
| MD | $104,040 | $99,124 | 30,530 |
| IL | $103,470 | $103,513 | 27,180 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/carbon-removal-project-developer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/carbon-removal-project-developer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,094,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,167,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 73,200 jobs, or +6.7%. Faster than average: 6.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 76,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Identify and evaluate sites for carbon removal projects
- Secure permits, land agreements and community support
- Build financial models for project funding and credit sales
- Select registries and methodologies for credit certification
- Set up measurement, reporting and verification plans
- Negotiate offtake agreements with corporate credit buyers
- Apply for government grants and tax incentives

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.30 |
| C — Conventional | 5.55 |
| I — Investigative | 3.64 |
| S — Social | 3.32 |
| A — Artistic | 1.57 |
| R — Realistic | 1.48 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 75.0 |
| ESFJ | 70.5 |
| ENTJ | 66.9 |
| ENFJ | 59.5 |
| ESTP | 58.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Project Management Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/project-management-specialist) — median $102,320
- [Information Technology Project Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/information-technology-project-manager) — median $116,580
- [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) — median $101,860
- [IT Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/it-manager) — median $175,140
- [Logistician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/logistician) — median $82,320
- [Administrative Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/administrative-services-manager) — median $114,130
- [General and Operations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-and-operations-manager) — median $105,770
- [Training and Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-manager) — median $133,000
- [Construction Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-manager) — median $114,990
- [Operations Research Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operations-research-analyst) — median $88,940

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/carbon-removal-project-developer