---
title: "Workplace Investigator"
description: "Investigates complaints of harassment, discrimination, retaliation and misconduct at work, then writes findings employers rely on."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/workplace-investigator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Workplace Investigator

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1071 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1071.00

Investigates complaints of harassment, discrimination, retaliation and misconduct at work, then writes findings employers rely on.

Also advertised as: Employee Relations Investigator; HR Investigator; Workplace Investigations Consultant; Employee Relations Specialist; Ethics Investigator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $75,940 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.51/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,180 to $128,720, with the middle half between $58,610 and $99,380
- **Total US employment:** 912,430
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 73,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 24/100 — 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 912,430 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,180 |
| 25th | $58,610 |
| 50th (median) | $75,940 |
| 75th | $99,380 |
| 90th | $128,720 |
| Mean (average) | $81,990 |

### 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 | $110,970 | $100,973 | 6,910 |
| MA | $85,630 | $80,969 | 27,300 |
| WA | $84,550 | $79,009 | 22,770 |
| NY | $84,380 | $78,187 | 54,610 |
| MD | $83,910 | $79,946 | 15,530 |
| CA | $83,500 | $75,415 | 104,000 |
| CT | $82,890 | $80,002 | 9,010 |
| VA | $82,090 | $81,194 | 28,540 |
| CO | $80,840 | $78,446 | 19,450 |
| NJ | $80,690 | $74,160 | 21,690 |
| MN | $78,760 | $79,861 | 17,240 |
| OR | $78,060 | $75,522 | 10,620 |
| VT | $77,800 | $79,422 | 1,270 |
| DE | $77,700 | $77,849 | 2,720 |
| RI | $77,560 | $75,831 | 3,320 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/workplace-investigator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/workplace-investigator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 939,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 999,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 60,100 jobs, or +6.4%. Faster than average: 6.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 73,700 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 | 46.6% |
| Master's Degree | 24.9% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 13.5% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 7.2% |
| Some College Courses | 4.8% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 1.7% |

## What the work involves

- Plan the scope and approach of each investigation
- Interview complainants, respondents and witnesses
- Collect and review emails, messages, video and records
- Assess credibility when accounts conflict
- Write investigation reports with findings of fact
- Advise employers on policy and process improvements
- Maintain confidentiality and document chain of evidence

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — 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

- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.3 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
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive 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 Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.67 |
| C — Conventional | 5.15 |
| S — Social | 4.27 |
| I — Investigative | 3.56 |
| A — Artistic | 1.35 |
| R — Realistic | 1.03 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 78.7 |
| ESTJ | 73.8 |
| ENFJ | 69.5 |
| ENTJ | 66.0 |
| ISFJ | 61.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) — median $75,940
- [Human Resources Assistant, Except Payroll and Timekeeping](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-assistant) — median $50,610
- [Human Resources Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-manager) — median $149,280
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [First-Line Supervisor of Office and Administrative Support Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-office-and-administrative-support-workers) — median $69,500
- [Compensation, Benefit, and Job Analysis Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compensation-benefit-and-job-analysis-specialist) — median $78,210
- [Industrial-Organizational Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-organizational-psychologist) — median $193,950
- [Compensation and Benefits Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compensation-and-benefits-manager) — median $149,230
- [Training and Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-manager) — median $133,000
- [Administrative Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/administrative-services-manager) — median $114,130

## 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/workplace-investigator