---
title: "Microbiologist"
description: "Investigate the growth, structure, development, and other characteristics of microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, algae, or fungi. Includes medical…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/microbiologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Microbiologist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-1022 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-1022.00

Investigate the growth, structure, development, and other characteristics of microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, algae, or fungi. Includes medical microbiologists who study the relationship between organisms and disease or the effects of antibiotics on microorganisms.

Also advertised as: Bacteriologist; Clinical Laboratory Scientist (Clinical Lab Scientist); Clinical Microbiologist; Medical Technologist; Microbiological Analyst; Microbiologist; Public Health Microbiologist; Quality Control Microbiologist (QC Microbiologist).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $87,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $42.30/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $54,670 to $150,000, with the middle half between $67,100 and $122,350
- **Total US employment:** 18,940
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 29/100 — 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 18,940 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $54,670 |
| 25th | $67,100 |
| 50th (median) | $87,990 |
| 75th | $122,350 |
| 90th | $150,000 |
| Mean (average) | $97,600 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $122,350 | $115,690 | 1,960 |
| CA | $108,530 | $98,022 | 2,600 |
| MD | $108,470 | $103,345 | 1,590 |
| GA | $103,070 | $107,038 | 880 |
| NJ | $96,020 | $88,250 | 790 |
| IL | $92,050 | $92,089 | 1,470 |
| OR | $89,220 | $86,319 | 170 |
| MT | $87,750 | $92,715 | 80 |
| CT | $86,360 | $83,351 | 180 |
| NC | $85,860 | $91,025 | 1,050 |
| PA | $84,650 | $86,756 | 670 |
| MN | $83,400 | $84,566 | 290 |
| DE | $82,770 | $82,929 | 190 |
| CO | $81,640 | $79,222 | 370 |
| NY | $81,090 | $75,138 | 1,050 |

28 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 43 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/microbiologist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/microbiologist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 20,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 21,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,300 jobs, or +6.2%. Faster than average: 6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,500 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.

### 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 | 63.6% |
| Master's Degree | 13.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 9.1% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 9.1% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 4.6% |

## What the work involves

- Isolate and maintain cultures of bacteria or other microorganisms in prescribed or developed media, controlling moisture, aeration, temperature, and nutrition.
- Study growth, structure, development, and general characteristics of bacteria and other microorganisms to understand their relationship to human, plant, and animal health.
- Supervise biological technologists and technicians and other scientists.
- Use a variety of specialized equipment, such as electron microscopes, gas and high-pressure liquid chromatographs, electrophoresis units, thermocyclers, fluorescence-activated cell sorters, and phosphorimagers.
- Prepare technical reports and recommendations, based upon research outcomes.
- Examine physiological, morphological, and cultural characteristics, using microscope, to identify and classify microorganisms in human, water, and food specimens.
- Monitor and perform tests on water, food, and the environment to detect harmful microorganisms or to obtain information about sources of pollution, contamination, or infection.
- Investigate the relationship between organisms and disease, including the control of epidemics and the effects of antibiotics on microorganisms.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Science — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.6 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Biology — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral 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

## 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), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 7.00 |
| R — Realistic | 5.29 |
| C — Conventional | 3.85 |
| S — Social | 1.98 |
| A — Artistic | 1.92 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.07 |

### 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 | 84.3 |
| ISTP | 82.6 |
| ISTJ | 81.4 |
| INTP | 72.7 |
| ISFJ | 58.0 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ, ISTP, ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Biochemist and Biophysicist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biochemist-and-biophysicist) — median $127,410
- [Biological Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biological-technician) — median $57,510
- [Medical Scientist, Except Epidemiologists](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-scientist) — median $103,410
- [Histotechnologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histotechnologist) — median $62,930
- [Geneticist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geneticist) — median $98,920
- [Chemist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chemist) — median $91,240
- [Molecular and Cellular Biologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molecular-and-cellular-biologist) — median $98,920
- [Biologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biologist) — median $98,920
- [Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pathologist) — median $312,400
- [Epidemiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/epidemiologist) — median $87,220

## 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/microbiologist