---
title: "Public Historian"
description: "A historian who works outside the university, researching and presenting history for government agencies, parks, museums and communities."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-historian"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Public Historian

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-3093 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-3093.00

A historian who works outside the university, researching and presenting history for government agencies, parks, museums and communities.

Also advertised as: Park Historian; Agency Historian; Federal Historian; Historical Consultant; Community Historian.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,750 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.90/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $42,730 to $131,810, with the middle half between $57,290 and $99,990
- **Total US employment:** 3,450
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 22/100 — 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 3,450 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $42,730 |
| 25th | $57,290 |
| 50th (median) | $76,750 |
| 75th | $99,990 |
| 90th | $131,810 |
| Mean (average) | $81,240 |

### 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 | $121,710 | $115,085 | Not published by BLS |
| MD | $120,580 | $114,883 | 50 |
| DC | $118,290 | $107,633 | 250 |
| MN | $103,040 | $104,481 | 50 |
| VA | $101,920 | $100,807 | 180 |
| WA | $99,720 | $93,185 | 30 |
| OR | $99,560 | $96,323 | 40 |
| CA | $97,420 | $87,988 | 210 |
| HI | $92,520 | $84,147 | 70 |
| IL | $89,670 | $89,708 | Not published by BLS |
| LA | $80,620 | $91,399 | 60 |
| NV | $80,140 | $80,157 | Not published by BLS |
| TX | $78,240 | $80,612 | 130 |
| NJ | $77,080 | $70,842 | 130 |
| FL | $74,740 | $72,273 | 110 |

20 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 35 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-historian/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/public-historian.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 3,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 3,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 100 jobs, or +3.0%. About as fast as average: 3.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 300 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 | 64.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 10.2% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 9.4% |
| Some College Courses | 8.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 6.5% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 0.8% |

## What the work involves

- Research history using archives, records and oral histories
- Write agency histories, site reports and historic context studies
- Prepare National Register of Historic Places nominations
- Develop public programs, tours, podcasts and exhibits
- Conduct and archive oral history interviews
- Work with communities on commemoration and interpretation
- Provide expert historical research for legal and policy questions

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 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 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- History and Archeology — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.3 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
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — 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 Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Artistic (A).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.52 |
| C — Conventional | 4.70 |
| A — Artistic | 4.21 |
| S — Social | 3.69 |
| R — Realistic | 2.39 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.35 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INFJ | 74.0 |
| INTJ | 73.5 |
| INTP | 63.9 |
| INFP | 61.9 |
| ISTJ | 56.7 |

Best-fitting types: INFJ, INTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Historian](https://nuecareer.com/careers/historian) — median $76,750
- [Anthropologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anthropologist) — median $70,770
- [Archivist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/archivist) — median $64,550
- [Curator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/curator) — median $63,420
- [History Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/history-teacher-postsecondary) — median $83,820
- [Geographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/geographer) — median $102,040
- [Sociologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sociologist) — median $106,030
- [Anthropology and Archeology Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anthropology-and-archeology-teacher-postsecondary) — median $99,650
- [News Analyst, Reporter, and Journalist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/news-analyst-reporter-and-journalist) — median $62,200
- [Librarian](https://nuecareer.com/careers/librarian) — median $68,270

## 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/public-historian