Study living things, in a lab or out in the field, and turn what you find into reports people act on.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$98,920
Lower tenth
$60,430
Top tenth
$168,010
These figures come from the biologists profile in the federal wage survey, where the median is $98,920 a year and the bottom tenth earn about $60,430. Biologists are reported inside a wider group that also counts scientists who are not biologists, so the spread is broad. Field and conservation work sits near the bottom of it. Laboratory and drug company work sits near the top.
About $17 to $23 an hour
Summer biological technician jobs with parks, forests and state wildlife agencies
Almost everyone in field biology starts here, on short contracts with no benefits, sometimes living in bunkhouses. It is how you get the hours that make you hireable.
Roughly $50,000 to $100,000
Entry to mid career biologist with a federal or state agency
Federal pay runs on the General Schedule, a published ladder of grades and steps with an extra percentage added for expensive parts of the country. You can look up every grade on the Office of Personnel Management site.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is two years at a community college, then two years at an in state public university, with a master's that a professor funds by hiring you as a research assistant. The high end is four full years of in state tuition plus paying for the master's degree yourself. Many biology master's students are paid a small stipend to teach undergraduate labs, so ask about that before you accept any offer, because it turns a $40,000 bill into a job. File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) for Pell Grants and federal loans.
Many biology master's students are paid a small stipend to teach undergraduate labs. Ask about that before you accept any offer, because it changes a $40,000 bill into a job.
Federal health insurance and pension
Government biologists get one of the better benefit packages in science.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Ten years of payments while working for a government agency or nonprofit can cancel the rest of your federal student loans.
Housing on remote assignments
Park and refuge jobs often include a bunk or a trailer.
Field gear paid for
Boots, waders, optics and safety training come out of the employer's budget, not yours.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A four year degree gets you in the door. A master's degree is what usually turns a seasonal job into a permanent one.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, chemistry, math and statistics. Volunteer with a local nature center, aquarium or wildlife rehabilitation group.
Bachelor's degree in biology
4 years
Take the field courses, the statistics course and at least one summer of real research or a technician job.
Seasonal technician seasons
1 to 3 years
Two or three summers counting fish, banding birds, surveying plants. This is the real entry exam for the field.
Master's degree
2 to 3 years
Two to three years, often funded by teaching. It is the normal price of a permanent research or agency job.
Doctorate, only if you want to lead research
5 to 6 years
Needed to run your own lab or teach at a university. Funded with a stipend.
Biology
Obviously, but pay attention to ecology and genetics.
Statistics
Biology is now mostly a data job. This is the course that separates people.
Chemistry
Required for almost every biology degree.
Computer science
Coding in Python or R makes you far more employable.
English
Reports and grant writing are half the work.
No state licenses the title of biologist, so anyone can use it. Federal agencies are stricter than that: hiring for biology positions runs on published qualification standards that require a degree with a set block of biological science credits, and your transcript is checked against them. The Wildlife Society also runs a voluntary Certified Wildlife Biologist credential that some state agencies and consulting firms like to see.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Mapping software
Geographic information systems work is on nearly every field biology job posting now.
Scientific diving or a boat operator card
Required for most marine and fisheries field work.
Wilderness first aid and CPR
Cheap, short, and asked for on remote field crews.
Species identification permits
Bird banding, bat handling and electrofishing all need specific training and authorization.
A driver's license and a clean record
Field crews drive trucks on rough roads all day.
Volunteer surveys
Breeding bird counts, stream monitoring, invasive plant pulls. They all count as experience.
A summer research placement
The National Science Foundation funds paid summer research spots for undergraduates across the country.
Comfort with camping
Some of the best jobs are ten days on, four days off, a long way from a town.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Up before sunrise because animals are. Drive an hour, walk in with a pack, run survey points for five or six hours in whatever weather arrives. Afternoon is data entry, gear repair and sample labeling. In the off season the same person sits at a desk cleaning data, running statistics and writing the report that decides whether a permit is granted or a habitat gets protected.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Forest Service and state wildlife agencies together hire thousands of biologists, and nearly all of those jobs are posted in one place, the federal government's single hiring website.
Of the roughly 1.8 million species described worldwide, over half are insects, and scientists think the large majority of species on Earth still have no name at all.
Genetic sequencing, satellite tracking collars and automatic recorders produce more data in a week than a field crew used to gather in a decade. Handling that data is why statistics and coding matter so much in this job.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.