---
title: "What can you do with an environmental science degree?"
description: "15 careers environmental science graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/environmental-science"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with an environmental science degree?

**What the degree involves:** Ecology, chemistry, geographic information systems, and fieldwork in real weather.

Environmental science is interdisciplinary, which means the destinations are decided by the technical specialism you pick inside it: field and laboratory monitoring, compliance and permitting, engineering, or the geospatial and planning side.

15 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 1 of 15 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 14 of 15 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Environmental Science and Protection Technician, Including Health | $55,090 | +4.0% | 5,600 | Associate's |
| 2 | Environmental Scientist and Specialist, Including Health | $82,220 | +4.4% | 8,500 | Bachelor's |
| 3 | [Environmental Compliance Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-compliance-inspector) | $80,730 | +3.0% | 33,300 | Bachelor's |
| 4 | Conservation Scientist | $73,010 | +3.4% | 2,500 | Bachelor's |
| 5 | [Occupational Health and Safety Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-specialist) | $90,150 | +12.5% | 14,900 | Bachelor's |
| 6 | Geographic Information Systems Technologist and Technician | $116,580 | +8.2% | 31,300 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | Forester | $76,400 | +1.2% | 1,100 | Bachelor's |
| 8 | Soil and Plant Scientist | $78,850 | +5.4% | 1,700 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | Hydrologist | $96,600 | -0.1% | 500 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | Geoscientist, Except Hydrologists and Geographers | $101,920 | +3.2% | 2,000 | Bachelor's |
| 11 | Environmental Engineer | $107,110 | +3.9% | 3,000 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | Industrial Ecologist | $82,220 | +4.4% | 8,500 | Bachelor's |
| 13 | Environmental Restoration Planner | $82,220 | +4.4% | 8,500 | Bachelor's |
| 14 | Urban and Regional Planner | $89,320 | +3.4% | 3,400 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 15 | Wildlife Biologist | $76,780 | +1.6% | 1,400 | Bachelor's |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 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