---
title: "Vertical Farm Grower"
description: "Grows leafy greens, herbs and other crops indoors under LED lights in hydroponic systems, controlling every part of the environment."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/vertical-farm-grower"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Vertical Farm Grower

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-4012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-4012.00

Grows leafy greens, herbs and other crops indoors under LED lights in hydroponic systems, controlling every part of the environment.

Also advertised as: Controlled Environment Agriculture Grower; Indoor Farm Grower; Hydroponic Grower; CEA Specialist; Head Grower.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $49,630 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $23.86/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,980 to $76,480, with the middle half between $40,950 and $63,630
- **Total US employment:** 15,130
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 52/100 — 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 15,130 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,980 |
| 25th | $40,950 |
| 50th (median) | $49,630 |
| 75th | $63,630 |
| 90th | $76,480 |
| Mean (average) | $53,840 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| IA | $64,070 | $73,004 | Not published by BLS |
| WY | $63,120 | $68,097 | 30 |
| AZ | $62,990 | $62,566 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $60,320 | $54,480 | 2,420 |
| KY | $59,860 | $66,394 | 210 |
| MN | $57,310 | $58,111 | 530 |
| NJ | $54,370 | $49,970 | Not published by BLS |
| MO | $54,060 | $59,526 | 420 |
| DE | $52,510 | $52,611 | Not published by BLS |
| NC | $51,470 | $54,566 | 550 |
| TX | $50,270 | $51,794 | 120 |
| MD | $49,680 | $47,333 | 200 |
| GA | $48,960 | $50,845 | 1,020 |
| ID | $48,870 | $51,176 | 650 |
| MS | $48,800 | $56,122 | 190 |

24 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 39 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/vertical-farm-grower/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/vertical-farm-grower.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 19,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 20,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,100 jobs, or +5.4%. Faster than average: 5.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,800 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:** Associate's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 41.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 13.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 7.2% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 6.0% |
| Some College Courses | 5.5% |

## What the work involves

- Seed, transplant and harvest crops on a production schedule
- Monitor and adjust nutrient solution pH and conductivity
- Set lighting, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels
- Scout for pests and plant diseases
- Troubleshoot irrigation pumps and growing systems
- Record crop data and run variety trials
- Follow food safety and sanitation procedures

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.9 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 3.1 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
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Food Production — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.4 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.82 |
| I — Investigative | 5.07 |
| C — Conventional | 4.67 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.99 |
| S — Social | 1.46 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 93.1 |
| ISTP | 82.7 |
| INTJ | 76.8 |
| ESTJ | 72.0 |
| ISFJ | 69.9 |

Best-fitting types: 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.

- [Agricultural Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agricultural-technician) — median $49,630
- [Agricultural Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agricultural-engineer) — median $98,590
- [Biological Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biological-technician) — median $57,510
- [Farmer or Agricultural Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmer-or-agricultural-manager) — median $89,900
- [Precision Agriculture Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/precision-agriculture-technician) — median $49,630
- [Food Science Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-science-technician) — median $52,130
- [Food Scientist and Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-scientist-and-technologist) — median $88,720
- [Biofuels Processing Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biofuels-processing-technician) — median $62,470
- [First-Line Supervisor of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-farming-fishing-and-forestry-workers) — median $59,320
- [Forest and Conservation Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-technician) — median $54,560

## 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/vertical-farm-grower