Environmental Planner / Scientist

Career Area: Science and Research

Occupation Group: Environmental and Climate Science

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Environmental Planner / Scientist earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $55,771

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $59,689

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Uses training and background in natural sciences to study the environment and threats to the environment. Investigates environmental problems and advises on solutions. May focus on potential environmental health risks to people, such as unsafe drinking water, or on protecting the environment and ecosystems from human activity such as development and industrial pollution.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Environmental Planner / Scientist is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
• Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
• Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Environmental Science: Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical, biological and information sciences (including ecology, biology, physics, chemistry, zoology, mineralogy, oceanology, limnology, soil science, geology, atmospheric science, and geodesy) to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems.
• Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Environmental Laws and Regulations: Working experience of Environmental Laws and Regulations. Environmental law, also known as environmental and natural resources law, is a collective term describing the network of treaties, statutes, regulations, common and customary laws addressing the effects of human activity on the natural environment. The core environmental law regimes address environmental pollution.
• Biology: Biology is the natural science that involves the study of life and living organisms, including their physical and chemical structure, function, development and evolution.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Environmental Planner / Scientist that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Environmental Permitting: Environmental Permit is any permit, approval, identification number, license or other authorization required under any Environmental Law.
• Land Use: Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods.
• Environmental Studies: Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment in the interests of solving complex problems.
• Environmental Assessments: Environmental assessment (EA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences (positive and negative) of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action.
• Clean Water Act: The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Environmental Specialist
• Environmental Scientist
• Local - Natural Beard
• Environmental Planner
• Environmental Protection Specialist

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Environmental Engineer
• Environmental Compliance Specialist
• Environmental Field Chemist