---
title: "Provenance Researcher"
description: "Traces the ownership history of artworks and artifacts to verify authenticity and identify looted or stolen objects."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/provenance-researcher"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Provenance Researcher

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-4012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-4012.00

Traces the ownership history of artworks and artifacts to verify authenticity and identify looted or stolen objects.

Also advertised as: Provenance Specialist; Provenance Research Associate; Art Restitution Researcher; Provenance Curator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $63,420 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.49/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $40,470 to $107,140, with the middle half between $48,870 and $83,080
- **Total US employment:** 12,150
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 40/100 — 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 12,150 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $40,470 |
| 25th | $48,870 |
| 50th (median) | $63,420 |
| 75th | $83,080 |
| 90th | $107,140 |
| Mean (average) | $71,560 |

### 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 | $93,310 | $84,904 | 140 |
| NH | $82,490 | $79,192 | 60 |
| NY | $79,120 | $73,313 | 1,330 |
| CA | $78,740 | $71,116 | 1,140 |
| RI | $77,930 | $76,193 | 70 |
| NJ | $77,800 | $71,504 | 120 |
| MA | $77,790 | $73,555 | 370 |
| CT | $76,510 | $73,844 | 190 |
| SD | $74,990 | $84,652 | 50 |
| WA | $74,030 | $69,179 | 260 |
| CO | $73,630 | $71,449 | 300 |
| NV | $69,900 | $69,915 | 100 |
| WI | $64,370 | $68,410 | 300 |
| AK | $63,880 | $62,408 | 90 |
| MD | $63,750 | $60,738 | 170 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/provenance-researcher/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/provenance-researcher.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 14,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 14,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 700 jobs, or +4.9%. Faster than average: 4.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,600 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 | 44.1% |
| Doctoral Degree | 34.8% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 8.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 6.1% |
| Some College Courses | 3.4% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 2.1% |

## What the work involves

- Examine labels, stamps and inscriptions on objects
- Search archives, dealer records and auction catalogs
- Reconstruct ownership histories and identify gaps
- Check objects against databases of stolen and looted art
- Write provenance reports for acquisitions and sales
- Support restitution and repatriation claims
- Collaborate with curators, lawyers and archivists

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.3 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 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- History and Archeology — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fine Arts — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written 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
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 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 Conventional (C), Investigative (I), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.37 |
| I — Investigative | 4.20 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.84 |
| S — Social | 3.82 |
| A — Artistic | 3.53 |
| R — Realistic | 2.47 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 63.6 |
| ESTJ | 63.1 |
| ESFJ | 62.2 |
| ISTJ | 60.9 |
| ENTJ | 60.2 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ESTJ, ESFJ, ISTJ, ENTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Curator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/curator) — median $63,420
- [Archivist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/archivist) — median $64,550
- [Historian](https://nuecareer.com/careers/historian) — median $76,750
- [Museum Technician and Conservator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/museum-technician-and-conservator) — median $51,440
- [Librarian](https://nuecareer.com/careers/librarian) — median $68,270
- [Anthropology and Archeology Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anthropology-and-archeology-teacher-postsecondary) — median $99,650
- [Set and Exhibit Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/set-and-exhibit-designer) — median $75,240
- [Anthropologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anthropologist) — median $70,770
- [History Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/history-teacher-postsecondary) — median $83,820
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850

## 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/provenance-researcher