---
title: "Computer Science Teacher, Postsecondary"
description: "Teach courses in computer science. May specialize in a field of computer science, such as the design and function of computers or operations and research…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-science-teacher-postsecondary"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Computer Science Teacher, Postsecondary

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-1021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-1021.00

Teach courses in computer science. May specialize in a field of computer science, such as the design and function of computers or operations and research analysis. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.

Also advertised as: Assistant Professor; Associate Professor; Computer Information Systems Instructor (CIS Instructor); Computer Science Instructor; Computer Science Professor; Faculty Member; Information Technology Instructor (IT Instructor); Instructor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $96,980 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $49,460 to $170,200, with the middle half between $66,600 and $131,320
- **Total US employment:** 35,480
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 30/100 — 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 35,480 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $49,460 |
| 25th | $66,600 |
| 50th (median) | $96,980 |
| 75th | $131,320 |
| 90th | $170,200 |
| Mean (average) | $104,420 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $128,210 | $115,797 | 2,480 |
| MA | $128,030 | $121,061 | 1,490 |
| UT | $124,460 | $125,890 | 550 |
| MI | $107,690 | $111,924 | 810 |
| OR | $107,310 | $103,821 | 530 |
| VA | $106,780 | $105,614 | 1,670 |
| NV | $106,640 | $106,662 | 140 |
| CT | $106,290 | $102,587 | 390 |
| IN | $102,660 | $109,998 | 1,240 |
| DE | $102,080 | $102,276 | 120 |
| DC | $101,380 | $92,247 | 210 |
| RI | $100,790 | $98,543 | 160 |
| ME | $99,730 | $102,761 | 120 |
| MD | $98,850 | $94,180 | 830 |
| IL | $98,750 | $98,791 | 1,540 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-science-teacher-postsecondary/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/computer-science-teacher-postsecondary.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 43,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 46,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,200 jobs, or +4.9%. Faster than average: 4.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 3,200 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:** Doctoral or professional degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 47.4% |
| Doctoral Degree | 41.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 11.0% |

## What the work involves

- Evaluate and grade students' class work, laboratory work, assignments, and papers.
- Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.
- Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, and course materials and methods of instruction.
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Compile, administer, and grade examinations or assign this work to others.
- Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 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.

- Instructing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral 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
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 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 Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 5.88 |
| I — Investigative | 5.69 |
| C — Conventional | 3.97 |
| A — Artistic | 3.32 |
| R — Realistic | 3.09 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.26 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INFJ | 68.8 |
| INFP | 59.9 |
| ISFJ | 58.4 |
| ISFP | 57.8 |
| ENFJ | 55.8 |

Best-fitting types: INFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [IT Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/it-manager) — median $175,140
- [Business Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/business-teacher-postsecondary) — median $99,080
- [Mathematical Science Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mathematical-science-teacher-postsecondary) — median $79,940
- [Library Science Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/library-science-teacher-postsecondary) — median $80,340
- [Engineering Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/engineering-teacher-postsecondary) — median $109,270
- [Software Developer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/software-developer) — median $135,980
- [Physics Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physics-teacher-postsecondary) — median $100,310
- [Computer and Information Research Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-and-information-research-scientist) — median $140,300
- [Computer Systems Engineers/Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-engineers-architect) — median $116,580
- [Computer Hardware Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-hardware-engineer) — median $161,740

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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/computer-science-teacher-postsecondary