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

# What can you do with a sociology degree?

**What the degree involves:** Social theory, research methods and statistics, inequality, and a lot of essays.

Sociology trains you to read groups, institutions and data about people, and almost none of its destinations are called sociologist. Graduates most often land in human services, human resources, research and public-sector programme roles; the academic and research titles need graduate study.

15 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 5 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 | [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) | $45,930 | +6.4% | 50,600 | High school |
| 2 | [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) | $75,940 | +6.2% | 81,800 | Bachelor's |
| 3 | [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) | $78,760 | +6.7% | 87,200 | Bachelor's |
| 4 | [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) | $54,210 | +1.0% | 14,000 | High school |
| 5 | Community Health Worker | $51,850 | +11.3% | 7,800 | High school |
| 6 | Probation Officer and Correctional Treatment Specialist | $66,270 | +2.6% | 7,900 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | Social Science Research Assistant | $61,990 | +4.4% | 5,200 | Bachelor's |
| 8 | Fundraiser | $72,550 | +4.3% | 10,200 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | Health Education Specialist | $64,070 | +4.5% | 7,900 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | [Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker) | $60,280 | +9.7% | 13,500 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 11 | [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) | $80,390 | +6.4% | 18,600 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | Urban and Regional Planner | $89,320 | +3.4% | 3,400 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 13 | Survey Researcher | $69,460 | -5.2% | 700 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 14 | Sociologist | $106,030 | +3.6% | 300 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 15 | Sociology Teacher, Postsecondary | $84,290 | +2.1% | 1,100 | Doctorate (graduate study) |

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