---
title: "Fermentation Scientist"
description: "Develops and scales microbial fermentation processes that produce foods, enzymes, medicines and alternative proteins."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/fermentation-scientist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Fermentation Scientist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-1022 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-1022.00

Develops and scales microbial fermentation processes that produce foods, enzymes, medicines and alternative proteins.

Also advertised as: Fermentation Engineer; Bioprocess Scientist; Upstream Process Scientist; Fermentation Development Scientist; Precision Fermentation Scientist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $87,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $42.30/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $54,670 to $150,000, with the middle half between $67,100 and $122,350
- **Total US employment:** 18,940
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 29/100 — 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 18,940 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $54,670 |
| 25th | $67,100 |
| 50th (median) | $87,990 |
| 75th | $122,350 |
| 90th | $150,000 |
| Mean (average) | $97,600 |

### 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 | $122,350 | $115,690 | 1,960 |
| CA | $108,530 | $98,022 | 2,600 |
| MD | $108,470 | $103,345 | 1,590 |
| GA | $103,070 | $107,038 | 880 |
| NJ | $96,020 | $88,250 | 790 |
| IL | $92,050 | $92,089 | 1,470 |
| OR | $89,220 | $86,319 | 170 |
| MT | $87,750 | $92,715 | 80 |
| CT | $86,360 | $83,351 | 180 |
| NC | $85,860 | $91,025 | 1,050 |
| PA | $84,650 | $86,756 | 670 |
| MN | $83,400 | $84,566 | 290 |
| DE | $82,770 | $82,929 | 190 |
| CO | $81,640 | $79,222 | 370 |
| NY | $81,090 | $75,138 | 1,050 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 20,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 21,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,300 jobs, or +6.2%. Faster than average: 6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,500 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.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 63.6% |
| Master's Degree | 13.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 9.1% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 9.1% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 4.6% |

## What the work involves

- Design and optimize growth media and fermentation conditions
- Operate and monitor laboratory bioreactors
- Scale processes from bench to pilot and production
- Sample runs and analyze growth and product formation
- Troubleshoot contamination and process failures
- Evaluate microbial strains for productivity
- Document processes for technology transfer

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Science — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — 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 3.6 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Biology — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 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), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 7.00 |
| R — Realistic | 5.62 |
| C — Conventional | 4.43 |
| S — Social | 1.98 |
| A — Artistic | 1.92 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.07 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 84.1 |
| INTJ | 83.9 |
| ISTP | 83.1 |
| INTP | 70.2 |
| ISFJ | 60.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, INTJ, ISTP. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Microbiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/microbiologist) — median $87,990
- [Biochemist and Biophysicist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biochemist-and-biophysicist) — median $127,410
- [Biological Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biological-technician) — median $57,510
- [Medical Scientist, Except Epidemiologists](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-scientist) — median $103,410
- [Histotechnologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histotechnologist) — median $62,930
- [Geneticist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geneticist) — median $98,920
- [Chemist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemist) — median $91,240
- [Molecular and Cellular Biologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molecular-and-cellular-biologist) — median $98,920
- [Biologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biologist) — median $98,920
- [Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pathologist) — median $312,400

## 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/fermentation-scientist