---
title: "Landscape Architect"
description: "Plan and design land areas for projects such as parks and other recreational facilities, airports, highways, hospitals, schools, land subdivisions, and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/landscape-architect"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Landscape Architect

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-1012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-1012.00

Plan and design land areas for projects such as parks and other recreational facilities, airports, highways, hospitals, schools, land subdivisions, and commercial, industrial, and residential sites.

Also advertised as: AP BD+C (Accredited Professional in Building Design and Construction); Golf Course Architect; Land Planner; Landscape Architect; Landscape Designer; Landscape Planner; Park Planner; Planner.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $79,870 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $38.40/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $54,770 to $130,190, with the middle half between $64,170 and $104,090
- **Total US employment:** 19,600
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — 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 19,600 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $54,770 |
| 25th | $64,170 |
| 50th (median) | $79,870 |
| 75th | $104,090 |
| 90th | $130,190 |
| Mean (average) | $88,780 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AL | $101,220 | $113,957 | 230 |
| CA | $98,380 | $88,855 | 2,310 |
| TN | $95,250 | $103,679 | 260 |
| NJ | $95,020 | $87,331 | 360 |
| UT | $94,430 | $95,515 | 90 |
| MD | $92,880 | $88,492 | 870 |
| TX | $89,220 | $91,925 | 1,450 |
| MA | $88,000 | $83,210 | 500 |
| NY | $87,360 | $80,948 | 920 |
| IA | $87,270 | $99,439 | 80 |
| RI | $85,420 | $83,516 | 90 |
| NV | $85,140 | $85,158 | 180 |
| DC | $85,100 | $77,433 | 170 |
| NC | $83,420 | $88,438 | 1,080 |
| ME | $82,440 | $84,946 | 110 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 23,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 24,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,000 jobs, or +4.4%. About as fast as average: 4.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,700 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:** Internship/residency.

### 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 | 85.0% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 10.0% |
| Master's Degree | 5.0% |

## What the work involves

- Confer with clients, engineering personnel, or architects on landscape projects.
- Analyze data on conditions such as site location, drainage, or structure location for environmental reports or landscaping plans.
- Inspect landscape work to ensure compliance with specifications, evaluate quality of materials or work, or advise clients or construction personnel.
- Prepare site plans, specifications, or cost estimates for land development.
- Collaborate with architects or related professionals on whole building design to maximize the aesthetic features of structures or surrounding land and to improve energy efficiency.
- Inspect proposed sites to identify structural elements of land areas or other important site information, such as soil condition, existing landscaping, or the proximity of water management facilities.
- Collaborate with estimators to cost projects, create project plans, or coordinate bids from landscaping contractors.
- Create landscapes that minimize water consumption such as by incorporating drought-resistant grasses or indigenous plants.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 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
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Design — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visualization — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.42 |
| I — Investigative | 4.73 |
| A — Artistic | 4.68 |
| C — Conventional | 3.70 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.65 |
| S — Social | 2.67 |

### 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 | 83.4 |
| ISTP | 82.6 |
| INTP | 82.4 |
| ISTJ | 70.5 |
| ENTP | 60.7 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ, ISTP, INTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architect) — median $99,280
- [Environmental Restoration Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-restoration-planner) — median $82,220
- [Architectural and Civil Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-civil-drafter) — median $66,150
- [Civil Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineer) — median $100,840
- [Sustainability Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sustainability-specialist) — median $83,050
- [First-Line Supervisor of Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-landscaping-lawn-service-and-groundskeeping-workers) — median $58,430
- [Architecture Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architecture-teacher-postsecondary) — median $96,870
- [Civil Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/civil-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $64,950
- [Urban and Regional Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/urban-and-regional-planner) — median $89,320
- [Construction Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-manager) — median $114,990

## 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/landscape-architect