---
title: "Economics Teacher, Postsecondary"
description: "Teach courses in economics. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/economics-teacher-postsecondary"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Economics Teacher, Postsecondary

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-1063 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-1063.00

Teach courses in economics. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.

Also advertised as: Adjunct Professor; Assistant Professor; Associate Professor; Economics Instructor; Economics Lecturer; Economics Professor; Finance Professor; Instructor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $123,920 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $64,060 to $224,200, with the middle half between $86,840 and $168,770
- **Total US employment:** 11,560
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 25/100 — 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 11,560 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $64,060 |
| 25th | $86,840 |
| 50th (median) | $123,920 |
| 75th | $168,770 |
| 90th | $224,200 |
| Mean (average) | $138,850 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NH | $201,610 | $193,549 | 80 |
| MA | $164,410 | $155,460 | 750 |
| DC | $161,860 | $147,278 | 220 |
| CT | $155,950 | $150,516 | 300 |
| CA | $137,360 | $124,061 | 770 |
| AZ | $137,250 | $136,327 | 100 |
| OR | $136,450 | $132,013 | 180 |
| VT | $134,850 | $137,661 | 80 |
| MD | $133,540 | $127,231 | 200 |
| LA | $132,670 | $150,408 | 70 |
| NE | $130,980 | $145,367 | 90 |
| MI | $129,400 | $134,488 | 350 |
| VA | $128,790 | $127,384 | 460 |
| UT | $128,370 | $129,845 | 150 |
| NY | $127,500 | $118,142 | 1,240 |

27 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 42 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/economics-teacher-postsecondary/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/economics-teacher-postsecondary.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 14,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 15,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 400 jobs, or +2.4%. Slower than average: 2.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,000 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Doctoral Degree | 80.8% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 9.7% |
| Master's Degree | 7.4% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 2.2% |

## What the work involves

- Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.
- Advise students on academic and vocational curricula and on career issues.
- Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as econometrics, price theory, and macroeconomics.
- Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 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
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive 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 | 6.21 |
| I — Investigative | 5.56 |
| C — Conventional | 3.90 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.36 |
| A — Artistic | 3.02 |
| R — Realistic | 2.73 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 63.9 |
| INFJ | 63.3 |
| ENFP | 57.6 |
| ESFJ | 56.2 |
| INFP | 54.5 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, INFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Business Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/business-teacher-postsecondary) — median $99,080
- [Sociology Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sociology-teacher-postsecondary) — median $84,290
- [Political Science Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/political-science-teacher-postsecondary) — median $98,070
- [Economist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/economist) — median $124,720
- [Mathematical Science Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mathematical-science-teacher-postsecondary) — median $79,940
- [Law Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/law-teacher-postsecondary) — median $128,500
- [Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,350
- [Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/family-and-consumer-sciences-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,870
- [Psychology Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychology-teacher-postsecondary) — median $80,340
- [Social Work Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-work-teacher-postsecondary) — median $77,570

## 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/economics-teacher-postsecondary