---
title: "Epidemiologist"
description: "Investigate and describe the determinants and distribution of disease, disability, or health outcomes. May develop the means for prevention and control."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/epidemiologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Epidemiologist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-1041 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-1041.00

Investigate and describe the determinants and distribution of disease, disability, or health outcomes. May develop the means for prevention and control.

Also advertised as: Chronic Disease Epidemiologist; Communicable Diseases Specialist; Environmental Epidemiologist; Epidemiologist; Epidemiology Investigator; Infection Control Practitioner (ICP); Nurse Epidemiologist; Public Health Epidemiologist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $87,220 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $41.93/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $61,270 to $138,800, with the middle half between $71,090 and $112,640
- **Total US employment:** 12,090
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +18.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 800 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 12,090 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $61,270 |
| 25th | $71,090 |
| 50th (median) | $87,220 |
| 75th | $112,640 |
| 90th | $138,800 |
| Mean (average) | $97,890 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $115,890 | $109,581 | 660 |
| DC | $112,370 | $102,247 | 90 |
| CA | $110,760 | $100,036 | 1,480 |
| NJ | $109,760 | $100,878 | 290 |
| WA | $108,240 | $101,147 | 1,010 |
| MN | $104,460 | $105,921 | 310 |
| IL | $102,720 | $102,763 | 240 |
| MD | $101,830 | $97,019 | 600 |
| NV | $99,880 | $99,901 | 80 |
| TN | $97,310 | $105,921 | 220 |
| OR | $93,620 | $90,576 | 140 |
| WI | $88,770 | $94,341 | 90 |
| PA | $87,860 | $90,046 | 360 |
| MI | $84,990 | $88,332 | 280 |
| VA | $84,930 | $84,003 | 220 |

28 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 43 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/epidemiologist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/epidemiologist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 12,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 15,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,400 jobs, or +18.7%. Much faster than average: 18.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 800 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:** Master's 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 | 66.7% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 22.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 11.1% |

## What the work involves

- Communicate research findings on various types of diseases to health practitioners, policy makers, and the public.
- Plan and direct studies to investigate human or animal disease, preventive methods, and treatments for disease.
- Provide expertise in the design, management and evaluation of study protocols and health status questionnaires, sample selection, and analysis.
- Write articles for publication in professional journals.
- Write grant applications to fund epidemiologic research.
- Oversee public health programs, including statistical analysis, health care planning, surveillance systems, and public health improvement.
- Investigate diseases or parasites to determine cause and risk factors, progress, life cycle, or mode of transmission.
- Educate healthcare workers, patients, and the public about infectious and communicable diseases, including disease transmission and prevention.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — 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.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.3 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 Investigative (I), Social (S), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 7.00 |
| S — Social | 4.11 |
| C — Conventional | 3.63 |
| R — Realistic | 2.82 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.37 |
| A — Artistic | 2.19 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INTJ | 71.9 |
| INTP | 63.1 |
| INFJ | 62.5 |
| ISTJ | 62.0 |
| ISTP | 59.6 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Preventive Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/preventive-medicine-physician) — median $265,930
- [Medical Scientist, Except Epidemiologists](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-scientist) — median $103,410
- [Clinical Nurse Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-nurse-specialist) — median $97,550
- [Geneticist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geneticist) — median $98,920
- [Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pathologist) — median $312,400
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Microbiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/microbiologist) — median $87,990
- [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550
- [Clinical Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-neuropsychologist) — median $110,840
- [Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neuropsychologist) — median $110,840

## 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/epidemiologist