Coroner Salary (2026), outlook and how to become one

Coroners earn a median of $80,730 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). That is 58% above the $50,980 median for all US occupations. That works out at $38.81/hr. The middle half earn between $61,280 and $109,010. The top 10% earn $133,720 or more.

The median hourly wage for coroners is $38.81 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). On a full-year basis the $80,730 annual median works out to about $6,730 a month before tax.

BLS does not publish a starting salary. The nearest measure is the low end of the pay range: the lowest-paid 10% of coroners earn less than $48,220 a year and the bottom quarter less than $61,280 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). New workers often start near that end, but where a particular job starts depends on the employer, the state and the credentials you bring, so read these as the bottom of the range rather than a guaranteed entry wage.

Some do. $100,000 sits between the median ($80,730) and the 75th percentile ($109,010), so roughly a quarter to a half of coroners earn more than that (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In 3 states the median itself is above $100,000: District of Columbia ($111,030), Massachusetts ($102,060), New Jersey ($100,000).

The highest state medians for Coroners are District of Columbia ($111,030), Massachusetts ($102,060), New Jersey ($100,000) (BLS OEWS, May 2025).

BLS does not split coroners' pay by specialty or employer, but its range shows how far the top end runs: the highest-paid 10% earn more than $133,720, against a median of $80,730 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Location moves pay the most in the published data: the best-paying states are District of Columbia ($111,030), Massachusetts ($102,060), New Jersey ($100,000).

Yes. BLS reports a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education for Coroners, and O*NET rates the preparation needed as medium preparation. BLS also lists moderate-term on-the-job training as typical on-the-job training. In O*NET's survey of people already doing the job, 35.0% hold bachelor's degree.

It is stable rather than fast-growing: employment is projected to change 3.8% over 2025–2035, about the same as the 3.5% projected across all occupations (BLS EP, 2025–2035). BLS still projects about 32,700 openings a year, mostly from workers retiring or moving to other work.

Compliance officers make sure that people and organizations meet legal and regulatory requirements. A core O*NET task: perform medicolegal examinations and autopsies, conducting preliminary examinations of the body to identify victims, locate signs of trauma, and identify factors that would indicate time of death. Employers most often ask for Data base reporting software, Data base user interface and query software, File versioning software.

Most work more than 40. In O*NET's survey of people in the job, 60% of coroners usually work more than 40 hours a week, 30% work exactly 40 and 10% work fewer. 45% say their schedule is regular and 55% irregular. Source: O*NET 31.0 Database, Work Context.

O*NET scores Coroners highest on the Investigative, Conventional and Enterprising interest areas, so the work mixes investigating, analysing and solving problems with ideas and data with organising, following procedures and working precisely with data. On NueCareer's MBTI-to-interest mapping that lines up most closely with ISTJ personalities. Personality is a fit signal, not a gate. The free NueCareer quiz scores your own profile against all 1,731 careers in the bank.

None at all in many elected-coroner jurisdictions; more than a decade for the medical examiner route. Georgia asks an elected coroner for a high school diploma and a police academy course completed within 180 days of taking office. Ohio asks for a medical licence held for at least two years. The medical examiner path runs from medical school through an ACGME-accredited pathology residency, with at least two years of training before fellowship, and then a forensic pathology fellowship and the ABPath examination.

Not a state license. Not a licensed occupation at all in most places. It is an elected or appointed public office, and eligibility is written into state statute and applied county by county, which is why no national answer exists. What varies: whether the position is elected or appointed (Georgia elects coroners and appoints medical examiners; a California board of supervisors may abolish the office of coroner by ordinance and appoint a medical examiner in its place); whether any medical qualification is required (Ohio requires a licensed physician of two years' standing, Georgia requires a high school diploma); the minimum age, residency and voter registration conditions; the term of office, four years in both Georgia and Ohio; and the mandatory training, which can be a police academy course, a coroners association programme or nothing. CDC also found that 20 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring that autopsies be performed only by pathologists, which is a separate constraint on who may do the medical work even where the officeholder need not be a doctor.

The ABPath Forensic Pathology Certification Examination. A one-day computer-based examination with combined written and practical sections and virtual microscopy sections, offered once each year in the autumn. Candidates must have completed an ACGME-accredited (or RCPSC-accredited) graduate medical education programme in pathology and at least 2 years of AP/CP, AP or CP training before beginning the subspecialty fellowship, with the programme director verifying competence for autonomous practice.

Women make up 52.7% of coroners, against 47.1% of all employed people: more women than in the workforce as a whole. 29.2% are 55 or older (23.2% across all jobs), so a larger-than-usual share of the workforce reaches retirement age over the next decade. Those exits are counted in the BLS openings figure. The median worker is 47.3 years old (all workers: 42.1). Source: BLS Current Population Survey, 2025 annual averages.