---
title: "Hazard Mitigation Planner"
description: "Studies a community's flood, wildfire, earthquake and storm risks and writes the plans and grant projects that reduce damage before the next disaster."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/hazard-mitigation-planner"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Hazard Mitigation Planner

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-3051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-3051.00

Studies a community's flood, wildfire, earthquake and storm risks and writes the plans and grant projects that reduce damage before the next disaster.

Also advertised as: Mitigation Planner; Hazard Mitigation Specialist; Resilience Planner; Hazard Mitigation Grants Specialist; Disaster Mitigation Planner.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $89,320 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $42.94/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $60,010 to $134,490, with the middle half between $72,020 and $110,030
- **Total US employment:** 44,230
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 31/100 — 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 44,230 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $60,010 |
| 25th | $72,020 |
| 50th (median) | $89,320 |
| 75th | $110,030 |
| 90th | $134,490 |
| Mean (average) | $94,750 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $137,000 | $124,658 | 120 |
| CA | $109,610 | $98,997 | 7,460 |
| OR | $103,070 | $99,718 | 1,010 |
| AZ | $102,400 | $101,711 | 1,330 |
| CO | $101,340 | $98,339 | 1,300 |
| WA | $100,990 | $94,372 | 3,180 |
| NV | $100,040 | $100,061 | 270 |
| CT | $99,880 | $96,400 | 350 |
| MA | $99,780 | $94,348 | 1,540 |
| MN | $97,060 | $98,417 | 860 |
| AK | $93,860 | $91,697 | 230 |
| IL | $91,360 | $91,398 | 1,140 |
| RI | $90,210 | $88,199 | 160 |
| NY | $89,630 | $83,051 | 2,420 |
| GU | $88,610 | No BEA price parity | 60 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/hazard-mitigation-planner/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/hazard-mitigation-planner.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 45,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 47,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,800 jobs, or +3.9%. About as fast as average: 3.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 3,200 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 | 56.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 40.0% |
| First Professional Degree | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Map flood, wildfire, earthquake and storm exposure using GIS and hazard data
- Write and update local and state hazard mitigation plans
- Run public meetings and planning committee sessions with residents and officials
- Rank mitigation projects using benefit-cost analysis
- Prepare federal mitigation grant applications and manage awarded projects
- Coordinate property buyout and elevation programs with homeowners
- Review building codes and land use rules for ways to reduce risk
- Advise recovery teams on rebuilding projects after a disaster

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 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
- Learning Strategies — 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.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — 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

- Law and Government — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 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
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — 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), Enterprising (E), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.52 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.56 |
| C — Conventional | 4.39 |
| R — Realistic | 3.22 |
| A — Artistic | 3.06 |
| S — Social | 3.03 |

### 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 | 76.6 |
| ENTJ | 70.0 |
| ISTJ | 69.1 |
| ESTJ | 62.8 |
| INTP | 60.1 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Urban and Regional Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/urban-and-regional-planner) — median $89,320
- [Transportation Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-planner) — median $101,110
- [Project Management Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/project-management-specialist) — median $102,320
- [Chief Sustainability Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chief-sustainability-officer) — median $213,990
- [Sustainability Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sustainability-specialist) — median $83,050
- [Brownfield Redevelopment Specialist and Site Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/brownfield-redevelopment-specialist-and-site-manager) — median $141,900
- [Climate Change Policy Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/climate-change-policy-analyst) — median $82,220
- [Environmental Restoration Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-restoration-planner) — median $82,220
- [Landscape Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/landscape-architect) — median $79,870
- [Conservation Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/conservation-scientist) — median $73,010

## 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/hazard-mitigation-planner