---
title: "Forester"
description: "Manage public and private forested lands for economic, recreational, and conservation purposes. May inventory the type, amount, and location of standing…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/forester"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Forester

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-1032 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-1032.00

Manage public and private forested lands for economic, recreational, and conservation purposes. May inventory the type, amount, and location of standing timber, appraise the timber's worth, negotiate the purchase, and draw up contracts for procurement. May determine how to conserve wildlife habitats, creek beds, water quality, and soil stability, and how best to comply with environmental regulations. May devise plans for planting and growing new trees, monitor trees for healthy growth, and determine optimal harvesting schedules.

Also advertised as: Area Forester; District Forester; Environmental Protection Forester; Fire Prevention Forester; Forest Silviculturist; Procurement Forester; Resource Forester; Service Forester.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,400 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.73/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $50,790 to $109,700, with the middle half between $62,710 and $91,640
- **Total US employment:** 10,430
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 48/100 — 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 10,430 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $50,790 |
| 25th | $62,710 |
| 50th (median) | $76,400 |
| 75th | $91,640 |
| 90th | $109,700 |
| Mean (average) | $79,170 |

### 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 | $107,120 | $96,749 | 820 |
| MA | $89,650 | $84,770 | 130 |
| AK | $87,210 | $85,200 | 80 |
| SC | $86,780 | $92,566 | 250 |
| MD | $86,100 | $82,032 | 120 |
| CT | $84,820 | $81,865 | 60 |
| IA | $83,000 | $94,574 | 50 |
| IL | $82,160 | $82,195 | 220 |
| OR | $81,450 | $78,801 | 670 |
| VT | $80,750 | $82,433 | 80 |
| TX | $80,370 | $82,807 | 210 |
| AL | $79,530 | $89,538 | 240 |
| WA | $78,460 | $73,318 | 950 |
| PA | $78,280 | $80,228 | 310 |
| NC | $77,870 | $82,554 | Not published by BLS |

29 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 44 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/forester/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/forester.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 13,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 13,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 300 jobs, or +2.2%. Slower than average: 2.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 900 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.

## What the work involves

- Monitor contract compliance and results of forestry activities to assure adherence to government regulations.
- Supervise activities of other forestry workers.
- Study different tree species' classification, life history, light and soil requirements, adaptation to new environmental conditions and resistance to disease and insects.
- Perform inspections of forests or forest nurseries.
- Establish short- and long-term plans for management of forest lands and forest resources.
- Determine methods of cutting and removing timber with minimum waste and environmental damage.
- Negotiate terms and conditions of agreements and contracts for forest harvesting, forest management and leasing of forest lands.
- Map forest area soils and vegetation to estimate the amount of standing timber and future value and growth.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Biology — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

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

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.32 |
| I — Investigative | 4.48 |
| C — Conventional | 4.39 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.78 |
| S — Social | 2.30 |
| A — Artistic | 1.25 |

### 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 | 92.7 |
| ESTJ | 81.6 |
| ISTP | 75.1 |
| INTJ | 71.5 |
| ISFJ | 69.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Forest and Conservation Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-technician) — median $54,560
- [Range Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/range-manager) — median $73,010
- [Conservation Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/conservation-scientist) — median $73,010
- [Forest and Conservation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-worker) — median $43,680
- [Environmental Restoration Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-restoration-planner) — median $82,220
- [Environmental Scientist and Specialist, Including Health](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-scientist-and-specialist) — median $82,220
- [Soil and Plant Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/soil-and-plant-scientist) — median $78,850
- [Industrial Ecologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-ecologist) — median $82,220
- [Forest Fire Inspector and Prevention Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-fire-inspector-and-prevention-specialist) — median $56,870
- [Brownfield Redevelopment Specialist and Site Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/brownfield-redevelopment-specialist-and-site-manager) — median $141,900

## 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/forester