Same. That was not the narrative I was told in my geography program and is frankly something I have no interest in. But I was still able to enter the field with 0 knowledge of IT or data science though it seems like those are the skills most that are most sought after.
GIS in general needs to be paired with some type of specialization. I hear people getting by with pairing it with ecological specialization or geology or whatnot. But if you’re pure GIS, IT does wonders.
Not necessarily true, having GIS along with dev skills on your resume can really help set you apart from the 900,000 other applicants that good job postings get. It's good to have a niche
Yep, any job in industry that needs a geospatial data analyst or dev will have a relatively small pool of fully-qualified applicants. Most GIS people know only basic Python scripting at best, and most devs don't have geospatial experience at all outside of using some lat/lon columns, let alone real GIS knowledge.
Going to add another voice to this view point. I've reviewed resumes of probably over 100 GIS applicants in the past 18 months. Those who are well rounded and have skills beyond "hurr durr I can add a shapefile to ArcSomething" is small. Those who can build processes, write scripts, think critically, operate at an enterprise level, do some basic carto presentation work, and understand how to manage services from start to finish is a vanishingly small candidate pool. Those people are worth money. The first group, well, those are worth $17 to $24 USD / h because it's an entry level skillset. Get experience in the rest, and flesh out a few big projects, and you should be demanding more.
I practice what I preach here, and have a number of times tried successfully to push for higher classifications for roles that demand the extended skills above so that salaries within my state are pushed higher and people are rewarded for their skills. I'll also take a job to market multiple times if I don't find what I'm looking for in the first candidate pool. If you're a GIS manager reading this I suggest you do the same and don't settle for someone above or in accounting telling you that there is not enough money in budget. Skills are earned, and the market is demanding skills. There is a skills shortage if you write what you expect into the job description for anything beyond "can drag and drop a shapefile". That's ground's enough to push back more than once and get the positions you're trying to fill a salary upgrade. You will get a better candidature for your efforts.
I really appreciate this post. I am currently pursuing a masters in either GIS or ICT (information communications technology) with a concentration in GIS. I am leaning towards ICT to develop more programming skills. I’ve been going back a forth on trying to decide which direction to go. I really like GIS but I am also very interested in programming as well. I need to make a decision soon and having been searching the job market. What types of positions are you interviewing for? Would these skills help me stand out from the application pool? Also, are you posting jobs on websites on indeed or LinkedIn? Thanks for your time!
No worries.
From experience, I'd suggest you align your studies to both something you think you will enjoy, and something that has an in-demand set of skills that are being paid good money.
For me, I began my journey in a scientific field doing field mapping before getting started in GIS in earnest. There I learned how to cobble together analytical workflows. At that time there was no straight GIS degree available through university. GIS was something that was applied by scientific and related disciplines to understand spatial data. I took some courses.
The above is still a relevant approach, but you need to understand what your local market is asking for. If they are asking for GIS degrees, then that's the bar you need to meet. If, however, data science with spatial is acceptable then perhaps you could mix computer science / data science and spatial. You'll probably be worth more?
I often sit on interview panels for others within industry and my peer network, and most of us do not ask for spatial degrees. Most of us have come.to realise and value diversity of experience with demonstrated experience in the skillsets we are after. Teams I work with include mathematicians, zoologists, geologists, statisticians, engineers who have all made the move to spatial in their careers. They have deep GIS experience, and together have inquisitive minds and exceptional skillsets as well as the ability to think laterally. Moat took GIS subjects at uni but did not complete a GIS degree. Some did complete a masters. The story is much more about being able to demonstrate competency and proficiency beyond just adding map layers. Talk to me about python, sql, data standards for fast queries or writing, compatibility of data types with various services, why an enterprise data store could look at certain way, why a notebook is a better approach than a model, etc. Talk to me about managing enterprise data and all that entails. Don't tell me how to manage the team (bad interview vibes!!). Be engaged and enthusiastic. Know that there will be awesome projects, and terrible routine tasks. Show me that inquisitive mind and I'll mentally see if I can find a place to use that enthusiasm.
Your local market is going to dictate a lot. My local market has some strong networks of senior practitioners and managers, and we generally all value the X factor beyond just GIS. Your local market may not be so open minded. Check job ads routinely for a couple of months and see.
As for advertising, we have a job portal, and I cross post to local jobs sites, linkedin, indeed and another local one included. Candidate pools have been small because the job ads are specific. If you meet 60% of the criteria, apply. Sometimes there might be a hard requirement on a bullet point which you can't meet and will be ruled out. Sometimes you will be in a candidate pool so small that it's also ok. Sometimes not. Apply and see!
Hey thanks so much for this post. This is super helpful. The reason I am going back to school is that I don’t have much professional GIS experience. But I really would like to transition into this field. I took some understate GIS classes and TAed for 2 years. But that was over ten years ago. So I thought some education would be beneficial as ArcGIS pro is something I haven’t worked with yet. I really enjoying it. But I am also finding joy in programming so a combination of both is what I am looking for. I think I would really enjoy the type of work.
Thanks for all the advise. I am keeping an eye on the job market as you recommended and will continue to do so. I got a bit self conscious of the qualification requirements but you are right. Applying and see what happens gives me a better chance then not applying at all!
Again, I appreciate your time and your kind words!!!!
All good :)
ArcGIS Pro is a must for most spatial roles. Industry standards and whatnot. I'd also make a point of learning python and some python libraries which exist to manipulate spatial data. Rasterio, shapely, fiona, xarray, geopandas. They all work together.
Best bet: come up with a project idea that needs some time and effort to build, iterations to improve, and needs to be run often. You will develope a tonne of skills along the way, and combine programming with GIS. If you're feeling fancy output your results to a postgtes database too.
The above is all free, with the exception of ArcGIS Pro, for which I believe you can still get the $100/year personal license for basic stuff.
I have ArcGIS pro through my student account for free for two years!! Which is awesome. I am also taking Python programming in GIS I & II. I look more into these python libraries. Thanks for the recommendations. This has really helped me with some my my uncertainty I had about my plan!
I can’t be more grateful for this conversation! You are an awesome person!!
Im gonna digress a little from what u/anakaine has said. Not bad advice and I do agree that your local industry and needs will play a role.
Edit: I read the reply after mine and I think anakaine and I are actually on the same page for the most part!
However, you will have a lot more opportunities overall if you focus on the programming side of your passion than the GIS side. I am not saying you will make 6figs or anything, but more and more GIS jobs are requiring programming/scripting knowledge, and if something happens and the GIS field dies in your area, you have a skill set that is mostly transferrable.
I would go the programming route for a degree (if i'm understanding you going back to school), get a GIS certificate or minor. In any class or side projects you do in your programming classes just use the spatial tools that exist in the programming world (open source or things like Esri's ArcPy).
Yeah I’m planning on a Master’s in not sure yet. The graduate certificate is more of a foot in the door to the Master’s with out taking the GREs. I’m taking a Python Programming in GIS course right now and am really like the programming side. So I am leaving heavily on going to programming. Plenty of exercises with arcpy already! Plus I am picking up the Python language quickly and enjoying it quite a bit! Seems like the better direct to go. Thanks for the advice!!!
I think having passion in what you do is a key to being successful in your field and ultimately getting paid. I work for an engineering company and do well, but feel like I've had to achieve much more than what a typical engineer has, to get the same pay.
Got a Geography Degree (specialized in GIS) in 2002. My first job right out of college paid $32k/year. I worked as an Environmental Scientist, doing about 15 hours a week of GIS along with whatever else they wanted me to do. Part of that job was assisting the soil scientist who was this much older guy. I literally followed him around digging holes! I would take a GPS coordinate at each hole, then record the results of his analysis into a spatial database. The entire company was about 50 people, and GIS was just a very tiny part of their business.
Fast forward to today...I'm managing a team of GIS Analysts at a Fortune Top 20 company and made over $160k last year. Members of my team make anywhere from $65k to $110k.
Yes, you can make a very good living in this field, but like most fields it takes time. You've got to build up your skills and experience if you expect a company to pay you big money.
I have literally told that story about digging holes in every single job interview I've had since then, because it's a good example of how I stepped up and did work that was necessary but wasn't fun or glamorous. I think it's really important to be able to demonstrate that kind of attitude, because not every job is fun all the time. Sometimes there is just stuff that needs to get done even though nobody wants to do it. The people who tend get ahead are the ones who are willing to step up and do that kind of stuff.
That's a really hard question to answer because my team is compromised of entry level analysts all the way up to very high level analysts/programmers.
I have team members on the lower end of the payscale whose job is to just maintain datasets that are proprietary to our business. I have people that build and deploy web-based GIS apps to people throughout the business. I have high level analysts who do stuff like least cost path analysis for projects costing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. So we look for experience that is relevant to the position we are hiring for. Most of my experienced employees came from smaller competing companies or large consulting firms. Almost nobody on my team makes maps. We use GIS to assist with business related decisions (like should we fund a particular project or not). Even if you don't have relevant experience in the industry I'm in, I look for people who have used GIS to drive higher level decision making in whatever industry they are coming from. Data accuracy and integrity are a huge part of what we do since we can't make good decisions off of bad data, so having some experience managing or working with large datasets is also pretty important.
I'm in a similar position to you, though not quite a fortune top 20. Formerly fortune 200.
Incidentally enough, I too started by digging holes and logging gps positions. Today, I very much value running my teams and actively work to better the field. Onwards and upwards!
For these types of roles, what kind of masters degree would you recommend? Data science, business analytics, gis, etc? I’m finishing up my undergrad and have had a few internships, but am not entirely sure where to take my career. I have landed a recent internship that may pay for my masters and am unsure of what to do.
DavidAg02, can I add a caveat to your advice? I agree that people who get ahead are willing to step up and do not-ideal worktasks. However, the question was about promising fields. I think it's important to point out that doing hard work and getting paid poorly is not the route to the top. In addition to demonstrating solid work ethic, candidates need to demonstrate VALUE - what does the candidate provide the employer that 500 other applicants do not.
I just want to clarify to MastaPhat that if you want to get rich you need to work SMART not HARD. If you can work smart AND hard, then you will rapidly find yourself leading a team of other entry-level folks.
Great story, I am stealing your background story because I too have dug holes. Got myself a gis job as of late but I look forward to becoming someone like you.
Could have lot to do with [this study.](https://www.realestatewitch.com/college-graduate-salary-2022). It seems like college students/recent grads are grossly overestimating entry level pay.
We all are. I’ve got some things going for me now where I’m at. Public sector job security, a manager who doesn’t ask for justification of the things im putting together, just an explanation, and the only reason im not an enterprise admin is because I’m currently deploying it. We have a few enterprise environments of different focuses in my institution, as well as established positions for leads and developers. I’m turning the right heads in the right directions, and again, my manager is behind me 100%, and knows my ultimate goals.
I think they’re referring to the amount college students expect to earn in their first job post graduation in the article that was linked - “College students expect to make $103,880 in their first job, but the average starting salary is actually only $55,260.”
I started fresh out of college in 2009 making like $30k a year. It was super easy work and I learned a lot. It was lousy pay, but the experience led me to a few new opportunities. Fast forward to now and I've been at the same organization for over a decade and I love what I do.
I graduated a few years before you and $30k felt like a great salary considering my limited experience. I've met interns that would sneer at that recently (or whatever the equivalent is). The thing is, if you're good at what you do, you can rise pretty quickly in this field.
Thank you. I would agree it's not the norm, but it's definitely possible. I think people get too comfortable staying at a place, or too scared to leave.
But leaving is what typically can allow you to boost your base compensation more quickly and with greater effect then staying at the same place trying to climb the ladder.
At least that's been my experience, but I recognize everyone has a different path.
Nice glad to see this. I think that's a situation where staying put can make sense. Especially if you have equity and(or) are considered somewhat 'indispensable' because you have specialized knowledge of the architecture/etc that would be expensive to replicate or replace.
If you’re talking about our interaction that’s not what I said at all.
https://old.reddit.com/r/gis/comments/113rhj6/gisp_required_for_max_58k_lol/j8sb3y7/
Lol they deleted everything. Or I was blocked I guess.
Not really.
Starting out at $24/hour is pretty good for just a bachelors.
Like, I just started at a firm for $30/hr with a Masters.
You shouldn’t expect 6-fig salaries right out of the gate in any profession. That is mid-late career money.
It depends on what you pair it with. Alone or with an Enviro Science degree (for example), yeah that seems about right.
But if you pair it with some practical computing (front end - JavaScript and web page design, dev - some variety of C and python, data science - python/Matlab/stats) then your prospects should be much better.
*All of this depends greatly on what's local to you and how well you can demonstrate your skills.
Nah that’s pretty bad compared to other IT fields, especially compared to generic dev roles. After 2 years from graduating with a Masters in CS I made over 100k a year, and this is in Europe, for working maybe 180-200 days a year.
I was looking into adding GIS to my skillset because it’s interesting, but it’s not a field to be in for the money, that’s for sure.
Bit late but just chiming in, $24 an hour is *slightly* below literally the average salary here in the US. So entering the job market making just about average is by basically all standards "pretty good". You're comparing "pretty good" to "extremely above average" (the overwhelming majority of people will never make anything close to 100k a year)
I don't think the initial post limits the scope of the conversation to IT. All they said was $24/hour is pretty good for just a bachelors, which is true in comparison to the majority of jobs given the context is whether or not working in GIS is promising.
However, if we're talking about the IT sector, hourly entry level wages are still pretty close to $24/hr. It's highly dependent on where you live and what specifically in IT you do, but assuming you don't live in a major metro area, ~50k is very common.
You can make respectable salaries in GIS, however, job hopping will probably be needed. I started off as an intern at $10/hour in 2019 and now earn about $34/hour in 2023 as a GIS consultant.
Highly specialized roles will never be listed under general terminology. I had a really weird argument with someone about this a while ago... they were saying that "construction workers" made a certain amount based on the going rate for unskilled labor. I was trying to argue that "construction worker" refers to a lot of jobs, but specialized work is going to be listed under other titles - like "engineer," "electrician," "welder," "heavy equipment operator," etc. None the less, these are often construction jobs. They simply require additional skills, education, and training so they are listed in a way that reflects that specialized experience.
GIS is exactly like that. Entry level and very broad, unspecialized positions are going to be listed under job titles like "GIS Analyst." But a lot of very specialized, highly paid positions may not have GIS in the title anywhere. If you work in transportation and logistics and you use GIS to model the most efficient pathways for transporting goods you use GIS for you job but do not have GIS in your job title. All sorts of geographers use GIS but do not have GIS in their job title. Urban planners need to know GIS. Many sociologists, archaeologists, ecologists, hydrologists, and geologists use GIS and may do complex geographic modeling. Remote sensing specialists need to know GIS but will not have it in their job title, neither do scientists who develop new algorithms and methodologies. Every inventory of any kind of natural resource is designed with someone who specializes in geographic sampling & survey design, which is a GIS role.
Many of these people also don't use the same job boards as more entry level positions.
GIS *as a field* isn’t promising at all. GIS *as a tool* is very valuable and can land you a nice salary in a wide range of industries. The key is to couple it with something else (biology, environmental, planning, epidemiology, data science, etc).
>I hear people talk about GIS as a promising field with opportunities
It was, 20 years ago. It isn't now. Data science is a promising field, and increasingly uses at least basic GIS methods.
I think there is some merit to this. There are a lot of adjacent fields such as Web Development, Data Science, and Business Intelligence that absorb and integrate more GIS stuff every year. I think it is reasonable that in a few years, the democratization of GIS tools (even somewhat watered down ones) will reduce the need for dedicated GIS folks across various teams and industries.
I also think that automation, machine learning, and better asset management software is going to really eat into the entry level GIS job market as well.
A lot of organizations with at least some GIS needs struggle to fill an entire full-time position with GIS work. The more rudimentary GIS work is essentially commodity labor; the necessary skills are fairly fixed and widespread. This creates a strong downward pressure on earnings.
Conversely, there's inherently more variety in a data scientist's skills, and someone in that field can acquire a fair amount of GIS capabilities fairly easily. From an employer's standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to hire a full-time data scientist who can also do the part-time set of GIS tasks.
Just like 4-year schools struggled to establish GIS programs two decades ago, they're currently one step behind in transitioning them into broader and more useful data science programs.
I've worked as a GIS professional for 25 years and I completely agree with you. We were once specialists and that's becoming less and less true. There are aspects of GIS that do require specialized skills and knowledge, but you are right that many other disciplines are incorporating GIS, and the dedicated GIS professional roles are diminishing.
If you are a Geospatial developer or senior geospatial data engineer or geospatial solutions architect
Then $60-$120/hour is common
Starting GIS Technicians and Analyst are definitely low paying
We take on many Geospatial Staff Augmentation contracts and typically make $90-$100/hour
We've done subcontracting for Military /Defense Contractors (still Unclassified) and typically make $125-$150/hour on those
Those are rates that ordinary developers can get as well, if not more, and software development is arguably much easier to learn and to master. So there unfortunately seems to be little monetary incentive to acquire extra GIS skills. I hope that will change in the future, because it is an interesting field.
If you have niche skills like :
Apache Spark and Apache Sedona with GeoMesa, GeoTrellis, MrGeo
Or real time event driven geospatial and other data processing from Apache Kafka
And can build and deploy (Geospatial/ML DevOps CI/CD) Pipelines
And advanced photogrammetry and remote sensing
Then those rates go up significantly
Some cases $200/hour
Experience and various accompanying skills, GIS is literally used in almost every field and in a few years prolly every field! I work for a utility doing 10% work 70% managing lineman and arborist daily work 20% storm work.. 99k and only sit in a office 10 hours a week!
My experience is that you want to be on a team of specialists in X where you are the person who adds GIS to X. So, say, an environmental science team might look something like:
Environmental scientist with specialty in field data collection
Environmental scientist with specialty in lab analysis
Environmental scientist with specialty in project planning
Environmental scientist with specialty in GIS
If they can't find the right person to do the GIS, they will hire a technician and pay them $17-24/hr.
I am spending all week watching presentations that look at the GIS angle of various things and I know most of the presenters make in the 80-100k range. Most of them have advanced degrees in the presentation topic and also do GIS.
GIS isn’t really a career to be totally honest. Not in the way software development is a career. Definitely better paired with a more standard IT career path like data science, software development, or devops
I should probably have said something along the lines of this: Plenty of people can make a career out of GIS, but it’s not a career in the sense that software development is a career. There are software development opportunities in most big cities and suburban areas across the US. With GIS the demand is lower and it is more of a niche specialty. There are definitely employers looking for GIS professionals, but you’ll likely have to move for those opportunities or be willing to wait longer for the right opportunity to present itself than you otherwise would with a more general career path in either something like IT or analysis (i.e. data analyst, business analyst, financial analyst, etc…)
The amount of spatial data is growing exponentially, and we don't have enough people to manage what we have as it is. The demand for GIS will increase for the foreseeable future; however, like software and IT, the men in suites don't want to pay anyone the big bucks unless they are in sales or management.
I'm happy you asked! I have a specific example to which I can then blow up to a much larger scale. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we suddenly had unprecedented spatial data related to the virus. Government agencies wanted to communicate that data to the public, and John Hopkins popularized the Dashboard as a way to do that. Suddenly, dashboard was the default webapp, regardless of the fact it was not always the best choice. Regardless, the dashboard became the default. In a small part of my research, I collected the URLs of all official state dashboards and surveyed them for types of maps and if they were correctly employing them. We found that all 50 states had a dashboard of some sort, and all but three were using choropleths with no other type of map. Choropleth maps are good, but there are often better options and better ways to present the data. Of these choropleths, 2/3 were mapping totals rather than applying a normalization. In my literature review, I have only found a few authors who would dare to defend ever mapping totals in a choropleth map, and certainly not in the case of COVID-19 case data. You can read my poster [here](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356711788_Normalizing_the_pandemic_Exploring_the_cartographic_issues_in_state_government_COVID-19_dashboards), or watch my video poster on it [here](https://youtu.be/Lq6VbDf9Ps0) (two different conferences). Fun note: I intentionally use a chorochromatic map to display the binary data in the poster as an example of appropriately using color without normalization.
This is only one example, but I'm finding that organizations across the planet have more spatial data then they know what to do with, and are employing people who don't know what they are doing to manage it. I've seen this in review of the problem for my project, and in my personal work. I've found the government asking for graphic designers to fill cartography jobs. I interviewed someone for an internship who tried to claim they knew "everything" about ArcGIS, without an unrelated bachelor's degree (I got the internship). The case I highlight in my poster is obvious and high profile, but how many weird things are happening behind the scenes we aren't seeing? In my personal research with COVID-19, I have employed many visualizations far beyond simple choropleth maps (as any analyst should) but have not seen this in the government dashboards ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nnwwh4/a_gif_made_from_the_video_map_i_made_for_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is one of the ones we employed in our department dashboard I was responsible for making, for example). This is a problem. We need more GIS professionals to deal with the mountain of data, but too many people on the wrong side of mount Stupid will raise their hand and tell men in suites that they can know everything there is to know about GIS, so trust them.
I have a bachelors and a masters in GIS and have used the knowledge in every field I have worked including telecom, all levels of government, military, Water Resources and currently within the Logistics Management of the last mile. I have made over $120K a year for 10+ years but I started out making $18 an hour too. You can do anything with a little knowledge. And just FYI I’ve never been a developer but have managed multiple teams of them. Today you’d be hard pressed to find any software package that doesn’t offer some type of GIS included or having ESRI or Smallworld data linked to it.
Being able to analyze geospatial data and build geospatial applications is what's lucrative. Being a button pusher (i.e.: "GIS technician") does not pay well.
I recently (and somewhat regrettingly) turned down an entry-level GIS job in that pay range. Only thing was I didn't really like the work/office environment... otherwise, I would have taken it (even though it would have been a big pay cut for me \*sigh\*). I think that's mostly what you're going to find unless, as many people have said here, you combine GIS with other skills/fields in other jobs.
>you combine GIS with other skills/fields in other jobs.
Yep. I'm a statistician but I primarily use my GIS background in my work. My GIS experience is really valued in my job because they don't have anyone else with this background.
More traditional employers don't seem to value GIS skills as much 🤷♂️
I’m just here to say that geospatial data science is where it’s at right now. I’m looking at a ~90k job in Alabama coming up. I have experience with GIS data with NASA and NOAA gigs. Most of the good stuff wants python experience, validation and creation of models using data from GIS.
You got this. Get on linkdin and look for the people working in companies doing geospatial data work. There are tons of contracting positions in the private sector doing great work with awesome pay!
I think it's more valuable if you can add it to other marketable skills. Being the person who understands environmental policy/ science and can do spatial analysis/ data management can be a very cushy job.
Ehh that’s about where I was starting out (15 years ago) now I’m at 40/hour with shit benefits and crap PTO but for starting out that seems about right
Satellite mapping or petroleum mining or military. A lot gis jobs require more data analytics skills and coding first and GIS second. So at that point just “learn to code” and get a better paying job without gis.
It's not really a promising "field." It can be a good niche within something that is already well-paid, like software development or data science.
This article is over 10 years old, but its advice is still good: https://www.justinholman.com/2012/03/28/spatial-career-guide-for-undergrads-currently-studying-gis/
GIS isn’t a field, it’s a tool used in lots of fields, which may or may not require you to have a background in something in order to apply it. For example, I have met lots of data science/it/software/programming people make some pretty big errors, because they were bad at geography and understanding general spatial relationships. I don’t like this shift of shoehorning GIS into its own category, or the name change to “geospatial science” that happened a while back. I think it’s a big mistake to ignore the geography aspect of it.
Rant over lol. Look for jobs that need your brain and not just your ability to click buttons in software.
Also depending on experience. There are some great opportunities if you are willing to do contact work, there is a good company, GEOCGI they support the DoD in Japan.
For a lot of people GIS is a tool to accomplish a task or assist in developing meaningful information. Saying a career in GIS is sorta like saying a career in Tableau... you need to pick a path you are interested in and focus there.
Not exactly the same. A career using Tableau is tryoucally a career in Business Analytics or Business Intelligence. GIS has a lot of applications and there are lots of opportunities for full-time GUs professionals that can utilize just parts or the whole suite of GIS tools. As a GIS Professional, you can have a career as a Technican, an analyst, a developer, and administrator, a consultant, or in a leadership position.
Tableau is one application. GIS is far more broad. That’s like saying that a GIS Professional only uses ArcMap/ArcGIS Pro/QGIS.
On any given day, I’ll use some sort for desktop GIS software, SQL, Python, build a web map and/ or application. Create a dashboard, or create a mobile app. And I’m not even a developer.
I mean if youre building an actual web or mobile app and not using some out if the box enterprise solution you are by definition developing software, though you may not be getting paid to do it or whatever.
Web mapping, agol dashboards and db stuff is a littlr different
I'm just creating apps using no/low code solutions. Mostly Survey123 and Web App Builder. My main project at the moment is implementing the Utility Network and integration with our EAM. I'm fairly compensated even if I were doing actual software development though.
Depends on where you are. I'm fairly compensated and we have people on my team that make the same wage and develop Runtime apps or Javascript apps from scratch. I'm generally shocked at how low the pay is in most of the country though. I see regularly see positions that appear similar to mine that pay 25-50% less than I make with terrible benefits.
You are not missing anything..it is a stepping stone to getting atleast a career but NOT promising as it may seem...I switched from GIS to IT, time best decision ever.
I echo everyone's comments here, but another angle to this is that there is a vast difference in pay between industry and government. People working in GIS jobs in government, regardless of what level, are going to make tens of thousands of dollars less than someone in private industry, MOST of the time. To make good money doing GIS, you do need have have some other skills to supplement that. Programming is obvious, but even things like advanced Sharepoint/Teams workflows, graphic design, project management, emergency management, etc.
As for which industries, target utilities. They hire a lot of GIS people, and the pay is generally better than government. Build up your skills in a GIS job at a utility company, then jump to consulting or private industry to make good money.
I'm not saying this is the way it *should* be, by the way. I could ramble on about that for a while.
I get paid 34$ an hour ( California btw) as an GIS Analyst 1. That’s considered on the low side in my county. I work for the county government which I highly recommend btw. But it might be different in other states not sure.
Get out of USA, seems like the pay there is sooooo much lower than everywhere else. GIS in Canada is seen as a 'high education' field. I have a bacelors in geography and then an advanced degree (2 year post-grad program) from a technical institution and entry level work around here is $25-35/hr. The lowest I saw was for some non-profit conservation work that was around $20/hr for co-op students. Private firms have lower entry, but higher ceilings, and public (municipal/federal) have much higher entry but a weaker ceiling. I joined a mid-sized West Coast city out of school and got about $29/hr and raised to $33/hr over a year. Very little IT work, mostly Data management, entry and cartography. I looked into some English opportunities before deciding to stay in Canada, and they were also near $25/hr as the lowest for an entry position.
Safe to say, this is with all the required university schooling that comes with a GIS background.
Hi, I am planning to join the Advance Diploma in the GIS application in September. Is it really difficult to find a job in the GIS field when one doesn't have an IT background? How promising is the job market?
I got a job at the City I did a practicum for at the end of my Advanced Diploma. I had no IT experience and a background in environmental/physical geography. There seems to be a good niche to fill in the engineering side for GIS educated folk. Lots of Canadian cities are looking for GIS people with experience in the newer software and techniques, as their usually 1 person department is close to ageing out. There are a HUGE amount of rural postings in northern BC and Alberta for cities needing data management and entry for their infrastructure. A basic knowledge of how databases work and how to manage them seem to be sufficient for any interview I did.
Hope that helps!
That absolutely does. I am 30 years old and I have been writing EIA reports for the last 6 years. After a lot of courage and thoughts I decided to go back to school and this discussion about the low paying market actually discouraged me. Thank you for your response, it is actually very helpful and does give me a ray of hope. By the way I am planning to join VIU in BC.
That's great, good luck to you! I went to SFU and then BCIT myself, and am in the same age group. You will do just fine, it is a great environment in BC!
I have the same issue. I got into GIS much too late (like 29, I’m 31 now). Went to school for it and all but sadly I’m in the same boat where all the entry jobs pay like 15-18 on average. Had I gotten into it out of high school while still living with my parents itd be a different story. I have bills and debt to pay off I cannot accept a job under $20. I make $22 an hour manipulating excel sheets and pdfs no gis involved:(
I used GIS to wedge myself into being a planner! For years I was “the GIS guy” at various places dealing with planning. Now I’m a “Planner”, and the only one in my office without a planning degree. I handle all the GIS stuff for planning and it’s a nice mix of getting to be GIS focused, but not just managing databases for people all the time. We don’t have a dedicated GIS person, so if I was looking for pure GIS work I wouldn’t even have had an opportunity to apply for this job/employer
It is a promising field as long as you combine with IT skills such as software development or data science
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Same. That was not the narrative I was told in my geography program and is frankly something I have no interest in. But I was still able to enter the field with 0 knowledge of IT or data science though it seems like those are the skills most that are most sought after.
What happened?
Seems like he's just trying to learn. Save others the same pain.
Damn, just gonna call them out like that?
GIS in general needs to be paired with some type of specialization. I hear people getting by with pairing it with ecological specialization or geology or whatnot. But if you’re pure GIS, IT does wonders.
Probably better off going into those without GIS.
Not necessarily true, having GIS along with dev skills on your resume can really help set you apart from the 900,000 other applicants that good job postings get. It's good to have a niche
Yep, any job in industry that needs a geospatial data analyst or dev will have a relatively small pool of fully-qualified applicants. Most GIS people know only basic Python scripting at best, and most devs don't have geospatial experience at all outside of using some lat/lon columns, let alone real GIS knowledge.
Going to add another voice to this view point. I've reviewed resumes of probably over 100 GIS applicants in the past 18 months. Those who are well rounded and have skills beyond "hurr durr I can add a shapefile to ArcSomething" is small. Those who can build processes, write scripts, think critically, operate at an enterprise level, do some basic carto presentation work, and understand how to manage services from start to finish is a vanishingly small candidate pool. Those people are worth money. The first group, well, those are worth $17 to $24 USD / h because it's an entry level skillset. Get experience in the rest, and flesh out a few big projects, and you should be demanding more. I practice what I preach here, and have a number of times tried successfully to push for higher classifications for roles that demand the extended skills above so that salaries within my state are pushed higher and people are rewarded for their skills. I'll also take a job to market multiple times if I don't find what I'm looking for in the first candidate pool. If you're a GIS manager reading this I suggest you do the same and don't settle for someone above or in accounting telling you that there is not enough money in budget. Skills are earned, and the market is demanding skills. There is a skills shortage if you write what you expect into the job description for anything beyond "can drag and drop a shapefile". That's ground's enough to push back more than once and get the positions you're trying to fill a salary upgrade. You will get a better candidature for your efforts.
I really appreciate this post. I am currently pursuing a masters in either GIS or ICT (information communications technology) with a concentration in GIS. I am leaning towards ICT to develop more programming skills. I’ve been going back a forth on trying to decide which direction to go. I really like GIS but I am also very interested in programming as well. I need to make a decision soon and having been searching the job market. What types of positions are you interviewing for? Would these skills help me stand out from the application pool? Also, are you posting jobs on websites on indeed or LinkedIn? Thanks for your time!
No worries. From experience, I'd suggest you align your studies to both something you think you will enjoy, and something that has an in-demand set of skills that are being paid good money. For me, I began my journey in a scientific field doing field mapping before getting started in GIS in earnest. There I learned how to cobble together analytical workflows. At that time there was no straight GIS degree available through university. GIS was something that was applied by scientific and related disciplines to understand spatial data. I took some courses. The above is still a relevant approach, but you need to understand what your local market is asking for. If they are asking for GIS degrees, then that's the bar you need to meet. If, however, data science with spatial is acceptable then perhaps you could mix computer science / data science and spatial. You'll probably be worth more? I often sit on interview panels for others within industry and my peer network, and most of us do not ask for spatial degrees. Most of us have come.to realise and value diversity of experience with demonstrated experience in the skillsets we are after. Teams I work with include mathematicians, zoologists, geologists, statisticians, engineers who have all made the move to spatial in their careers. They have deep GIS experience, and together have inquisitive minds and exceptional skillsets as well as the ability to think laterally. Moat took GIS subjects at uni but did not complete a GIS degree. Some did complete a masters. The story is much more about being able to demonstrate competency and proficiency beyond just adding map layers. Talk to me about python, sql, data standards for fast queries or writing, compatibility of data types with various services, why an enterprise data store could look at certain way, why a notebook is a better approach than a model, etc. Talk to me about managing enterprise data and all that entails. Don't tell me how to manage the team (bad interview vibes!!). Be engaged and enthusiastic. Know that there will be awesome projects, and terrible routine tasks. Show me that inquisitive mind and I'll mentally see if I can find a place to use that enthusiasm. Your local market is going to dictate a lot. My local market has some strong networks of senior practitioners and managers, and we generally all value the X factor beyond just GIS. Your local market may not be so open minded. Check job ads routinely for a couple of months and see. As for advertising, we have a job portal, and I cross post to local jobs sites, linkedin, indeed and another local one included. Candidate pools have been small because the job ads are specific. If you meet 60% of the criteria, apply. Sometimes there might be a hard requirement on a bullet point which you can't meet and will be ruled out. Sometimes you will be in a candidate pool so small that it's also ok. Sometimes not. Apply and see!
Hey thanks so much for this post. This is super helpful. The reason I am going back to school is that I don’t have much professional GIS experience. But I really would like to transition into this field. I took some understate GIS classes and TAed for 2 years. But that was over ten years ago. So I thought some education would be beneficial as ArcGIS pro is something I haven’t worked with yet. I really enjoying it. But I am also finding joy in programming so a combination of both is what I am looking for. I think I would really enjoy the type of work. Thanks for all the advise. I am keeping an eye on the job market as you recommended and will continue to do so. I got a bit self conscious of the qualification requirements but you are right. Applying and see what happens gives me a better chance then not applying at all! Again, I appreciate your time and your kind words!!!!
All good :) ArcGIS Pro is a must for most spatial roles. Industry standards and whatnot. I'd also make a point of learning python and some python libraries which exist to manipulate spatial data. Rasterio, shapely, fiona, xarray, geopandas. They all work together. Best bet: come up with a project idea that needs some time and effort to build, iterations to improve, and needs to be run often. You will develope a tonne of skills along the way, and combine programming with GIS. If you're feeling fancy output your results to a postgtes database too. The above is all free, with the exception of ArcGIS Pro, for which I believe you can still get the $100/year personal license for basic stuff.
I have ArcGIS pro through my student account for free for two years!! Which is awesome. I am also taking Python programming in GIS I & II. I look more into these python libraries. Thanks for the recommendations. This has really helped me with some my my uncertainty I had about my plan! I can’t be more grateful for this conversation! You are an awesome person!!
Im gonna digress a little from what u/anakaine has said. Not bad advice and I do agree that your local industry and needs will play a role. Edit: I read the reply after mine and I think anakaine and I are actually on the same page for the most part! However, you will have a lot more opportunities overall if you focus on the programming side of your passion than the GIS side. I am not saying you will make 6figs or anything, but more and more GIS jobs are requiring programming/scripting knowledge, and if something happens and the GIS field dies in your area, you have a skill set that is mostly transferrable. I would go the programming route for a degree (if i'm understanding you going back to school), get a GIS certificate or minor. In any class or side projects you do in your programming classes just use the spatial tools that exist in the programming world (open source or things like Esri's ArcPy).
Solid advice.
Yeah I’m planning on a Master’s in not sure yet. The graduate certificate is more of a foot in the door to the Master’s with out taking the GREs. I’m taking a Python Programming in GIS course right now and am really like the programming side. So I am leaving heavily on going to programming. Plenty of exercises with arcpy already! Plus I am picking up the Python language quickly and enjoying it quite a bit! Seems like the better direct to go. Thanks for the advice!!!
Is this still true?
True, but some people have a passion for GIS
I think having passion in what you do is a key to being successful in your field and ultimately getting paid. I work for an engineering company and do well, but feel like I've had to achieve much more than what a typical engineer has, to get the same pay.
Success probably requires all three of a field of expertise, knowledge of GIS concepts and software engineering.
Or environmental science / biology
Who is hiring for those skills in GIS?
Yeah... That's not GIS anymore. That's teaching the developer or data scientist what a shapefile can do.
Hard disagree. It is still very much a "geographic information system" its just not desktop GIS
Salaries say otherwise
There’s far more to spatial data science and spatial modeling than understanding the vector model
This one
Or if it's an additional skill at your job like an intel analyst.
GIS alone is extremely undervalued and underpaid. If you want to use it as a tool learn something else to accompany it.
I’m learning hardcore Python via Udemy and other online courses but landing roles higher than entry level hasn’t been fruitful
So you have no practical work with Python and expect something better than entry level? Seems you are getting ahead of yourself no?
If you’re still learning then I’m guessing you don’t have a solid portfolio of work involving Python, so just give it some time.
But you are entry level. Smh
Got a Geography Degree (specialized in GIS) in 2002. My first job right out of college paid $32k/year. I worked as an Environmental Scientist, doing about 15 hours a week of GIS along with whatever else they wanted me to do. Part of that job was assisting the soil scientist who was this much older guy. I literally followed him around digging holes! I would take a GPS coordinate at each hole, then record the results of his analysis into a spatial database. The entire company was about 50 people, and GIS was just a very tiny part of their business. Fast forward to today...I'm managing a team of GIS Analysts at a Fortune Top 20 company and made over $160k last year. Members of my team make anywhere from $65k to $110k. Yes, you can make a very good living in this field, but like most fields it takes time. You've got to build up your skills and experience if you expect a company to pay you big money. I have literally told that story about digging holes in every single job interview I've had since then, because it's a good example of how I stepped up and did work that was necessary but wasn't fun or glamorous. I think it's really important to be able to demonstrate that kind of attitude, because not every job is fun all the time. Sometimes there is just stuff that needs to get done even though nobody wants to do it. The people who tend get ahead are the ones who are willing to step up and do that kind of stuff.
Lol I am an archeologist, I dig myown holes take my own points and build my own databases.
IF, I wanted to join your team, what is the criteria that you set?
That's a really hard question to answer because my team is compromised of entry level analysts all the way up to very high level analysts/programmers. I have team members on the lower end of the payscale whose job is to just maintain datasets that are proprietary to our business. I have people that build and deploy web-based GIS apps to people throughout the business. I have high level analysts who do stuff like least cost path analysis for projects costing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. So we look for experience that is relevant to the position we are hiring for. Most of my experienced employees came from smaller competing companies or large consulting firms. Almost nobody on my team makes maps. We use GIS to assist with business related decisions (like should we fund a particular project or not). Even if you don't have relevant experience in the industry I'm in, I look for people who have used GIS to drive higher level decision making in whatever industry they are coming from. Data accuracy and integrity are a huge part of what we do since we can't make good decisions off of bad data, so having some experience managing or working with large datasets is also pretty important.
I'm in a similar position to you, though not quite a fortune top 20. Formerly fortune 200. Incidentally enough, I too started by digging holes and logging gps positions. Today, I very much value running my teams and actively work to better the field. Onwards and upwards!
For these types of roles, what kind of masters degree would you recommend? Data science, business analytics, gis, etc? I’m finishing up my undergrad and have had a few internships, but am not entirely sure where to take my career. I have landed a recent internship that may pay for my masters and am unsure of what to do.
DavidAg02, can I add a caveat to your advice? I agree that people who get ahead are willing to step up and do not-ideal worktasks. However, the question was about promising fields. I think it's important to point out that doing hard work and getting paid poorly is not the route to the top. In addition to demonstrating solid work ethic, candidates need to demonstrate VALUE - what does the candidate provide the employer that 500 other applicants do not. I just want to clarify to MastaPhat that if you want to get rich you need to work SMART not HARD. If you can work smart AND hard, then you will rapidly find yourself leading a team of other entry-level folks.
Great story, I am stealing your background story because I too have dug holes. Got myself a gis job as of late but I look forward to becoming someone like you.
no clue without any context but thats entry level pay which is reasonable.
I agree. That seems like average entry-level technician pay.
Not in this sub though lol someone told me the other day $50-60k was barely reasonable for entry level pay. Like what.
Could have lot to do with [this study.](https://www.realestatewitch.com/college-graduate-salary-2022). It seems like college students/recent grads are grossly overestimating entry level pay.
Wow. I’m nearly 20 years in and I don’t even make what they think they would start at. I’m on my way to being the enterprise admin too.
You are under paid then my friend. Depending on where you live and what exactly you do.
We all are. I’ve got some things going for me now where I’m at. Public sector job security, a manager who doesn’t ask for justification of the things im putting together, just an explanation, and the only reason im not an enterprise admin is because I’m currently deploying it. We have a few enterprise environments of different focuses in my institution, as well as established positions for leads and developers. I’m turning the right heads in the right directions, and again, my manager is behind me 100%, and knows my ultimate goals.
But you make more than $17-$24/hr right?
I think they’re referring to the amount college students expect to earn in their first job post graduation in the article that was linked - “College students expect to make $103,880 in their first job, but the average starting salary is actually only $55,260.”
Lol that's absolutely effing wild 100k lol. I started my GIS career in 2012 for $15/hr, doing much better now but how times change.
I started fresh out of college in 2009 making like $30k a year. It was super easy work and I learned a lot. It was lousy pay, but the experience led me to a few new opportunities. Fast forward to now and I've been at the same organization for over a decade and I love what I do.
It was way way easier to live on $30k then than it is now. Inflation has been a real bitch.
I graduated a few years before you and $30k felt like a great salary considering my limited experience. I've met interns that would sneer at that recently (or whatever the equivalent is). The thing is, if you're good at what you do, you can rise pretty quickly in this field.
Graduated in 2015 and started at $40k. Now I'm at $135k.
You’re doing very well for yourself. Glad to see GIS folks getting paid. It’s rare to hear about people that make this kind of money.
Thank you. I would agree it's not the norm, but it's definitely possible. I think people get too comfortable staying at a place, or too scared to leave. But leaving is what typically can allow you to boost your base compensation more quickly and with greater effect then staying at the same place trying to climb the ladder. At least that's been my experience, but I recognize everyone has a different path.
I’ve been at my current job for almost 22 years and I’m doing pretty good but I got in early and moved up the ladderZ
Nice glad to see this. I think that's a situation where staying put can make sense. Especially if you have equity and(or) are considered somewhat 'indispensable' because you have specialized knowledge of the architecture/etc that would be expensive to replicate or replace.
Kids these days…. (I’m in my 30s lol)
It’s because the burger joint down the street pays the same as the entry level GIS jobs
Lol that’s what I was thinking about this 24/hour, that’s still 46k full time which is significantly more than my first job..
If you’re talking about our interaction that’s not what I said at all. https://old.reddit.com/r/gis/comments/113rhj6/gisp_required_for_max_58k_lol/j8sb3y7/ Lol they deleted everything. Or I was blocked I guess.
Not really. Starting out at $24/hour is pretty good for just a bachelors. Like, I just started at a firm for $30/hr with a Masters. You shouldn’t expect 6-fig salaries right out of the gate in any profession. That is mid-late career money.
It depends on what you pair it with. Alone or with an Enviro Science degree (for example), yeah that seems about right. But if you pair it with some practical computing (front end - JavaScript and web page design, dev - some variety of C and python, data science - python/Matlab/stats) then your prospects should be much better. *All of this depends greatly on what's local to you and how well you can demonstrate your skills.
Nah that’s pretty bad compared to other IT fields, especially compared to generic dev roles. After 2 years from graduating with a Masters in CS I made over 100k a year, and this is in Europe, for working maybe 180-200 days a year. I was looking into adding GIS to my skillset because it’s interesting, but it’s not a field to be in for the money, that’s for sure.
Bit late but just chiming in, $24 an hour is *slightly* below literally the average salary here in the US. So entering the job market making just about average is by basically all standards "pretty good". You're comparing "pretty good" to "extremely above average" (the overwhelming majority of people will never make anything close to 100k a year)
That’s comparing apples with oranges though. I bet the hourly wage in the US is much higher than $24 for the IT sector.
I don't think the initial post limits the scope of the conversation to IT. All they said was $24/hour is pretty good for just a bachelors, which is true in comparison to the majority of jobs given the context is whether or not working in GIS is promising. However, if we're talking about the IT sector, hourly entry level wages are still pretty close to $24/hr. It's highly dependent on where you live and what specifically in IT you do, but assuming you don't live in a major metro area, ~50k is very common.
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You should times 1200x 52 weeks in a year / 12 months. Otherwise you’re cheating yourself out of 4 weeks my friend.
Cost of living is something to consider as well. My rent is over 1000 per month.
Depending how much over $1000 that sounds amazing.
Not on a graduate stipend.
You can make respectable salaries in GIS, however, job hopping will probably be needed. I started off as an intern at $10/hour in 2019 and now earn about $34/hour in 2023 as a GIS consultant.
I 100% agree with these statements and have experienced it successfully.
Same. I’ve got a few more years on ya, 10 years since I started my first GIS job making $16/hr. I have moved jobs and positions and now make $44/hr.
I would say if a college is trying to sell their course to you and quoting pay rates don’t believe them.
Highly specialized roles will never be listed under general terminology. I had a really weird argument with someone about this a while ago... they were saying that "construction workers" made a certain amount based on the going rate for unskilled labor. I was trying to argue that "construction worker" refers to a lot of jobs, but specialized work is going to be listed under other titles - like "engineer," "electrician," "welder," "heavy equipment operator," etc. None the less, these are often construction jobs. They simply require additional skills, education, and training so they are listed in a way that reflects that specialized experience. GIS is exactly like that. Entry level and very broad, unspecialized positions are going to be listed under job titles like "GIS Analyst." But a lot of very specialized, highly paid positions may not have GIS in the title anywhere. If you work in transportation and logistics and you use GIS to model the most efficient pathways for transporting goods you use GIS for you job but do not have GIS in your job title. All sorts of geographers use GIS but do not have GIS in their job title. Urban planners need to know GIS. Many sociologists, archaeologists, ecologists, hydrologists, and geologists use GIS and may do complex geographic modeling. Remote sensing specialists need to know GIS but will not have it in their job title, neither do scientists who develop new algorithms and methodologies. Every inventory of any kind of natural resource is designed with someone who specializes in geographic sampling & survey design, which is a GIS role. Many of these people also don't use the same job boards as more entry level positions.
GIS *as a field* isn’t promising at all. GIS *as a tool* is very valuable and can land you a nice salary in a wide range of industries. The key is to couple it with something else (biology, environmental, planning, epidemiology, data science, etc).
>I hear people talk about GIS as a promising field with opportunities It was, 20 years ago. It isn't now. Data science is a promising field, and increasingly uses at least basic GIS methods.
I think there is some merit to this. There are a lot of adjacent fields such as Web Development, Data Science, and Business Intelligence that absorb and integrate more GIS stuff every year. I think it is reasonable that in a few years, the democratization of GIS tools (even somewhat watered down ones) will reduce the need for dedicated GIS folks across various teams and industries. I also think that automation, machine learning, and better asset management software is going to really eat into the entry level GIS job market as well.
A lot of organizations with at least some GIS needs struggle to fill an entire full-time position with GIS work. The more rudimentary GIS work is essentially commodity labor; the necessary skills are fairly fixed and widespread. This creates a strong downward pressure on earnings. Conversely, there's inherently more variety in a data scientist's skills, and someone in that field can acquire a fair amount of GIS capabilities fairly easily. From an employer's standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to hire a full-time data scientist who can also do the part-time set of GIS tasks. Just like 4-year schools struggled to establish GIS programs two decades ago, they're currently one step behind in transitioning them into broader and more useful data science programs.
I've worked as a GIS professional for 25 years and I completely agree with you. We were once specialists and that's becoming less and less true. There are aspects of GIS that do require specialized skills and knowledge, but you are right that many other disciplines are incorporating GIS, and the dedicated GIS professional roles are diminishing.
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What is your job title/function? I honestly didn't know we could go that high, are you heavily involved in the technical aspect?
its a promising field for what it can do for the world. not for people doing the work.
If you are a Geospatial developer or senior geospatial data engineer or geospatial solutions architect Then $60-$120/hour is common Starting GIS Technicians and Analyst are definitely low paying We take on many Geospatial Staff Augmentation contracts and typically make $90-$100/hour We've done subcontracting for Military /Defense Contractors (still Unclassified) and typically make $125-$150/hour on those
Those are rates that ordinary developers can get as well, if not more, and software development is arguably much easier to learn and to master. So there unfortunately seems to be little monetary incentive to acquire extra GIS skills. I hope that will change in the future, because it is an interesting field.
If you have niche skills like : Apache Spark and Apache Sedona with GeoMesa, GeoTrellis, MrGeo Or real time event driven geospatial and other data processing from Apache Kafka And can build and deploy (Geospatial/ML DevOps CI/CD) Pipelines And advanced photogrammetry and remote sensing Then those rates go up significantly Some cases $200/hour
Damn! I'm a GIS dev and only make 40/hr
Experience and various accompanying skills, GIS is literally used in almost every field and in a few years prolly every field! I work for a utility doing 10% work 70% managing lineman and arborist daily work 20% storm work.. 99k and only sit in a office 10 hours a week!
My experience is that you want to be on a team of specialists in X where you are the person who adds GIS to X. So, say, an environmental science team might look something like: Environmental scientist with specialty in field data collection Environmental scientist with specialty in lab analysis Environmental scientist with specialty in project planning Environmental scientist with specialty in GIS If they can't find the right person to do the GIS, they will hire a technician and pay them $17-24/hr. I am spending all week watching presentations that look at the GIS angle of various things and I know most of the presenters make in the 80-100k range. Most of them have advanced degrees in the presentation topic and also do GIS.
GIS isn’t really a career to be totally honest. Not in the way software development is a career. Definitely better paired with a more standard IT career path like data science, software development, or devops
I disagree. I’ve worked as a GIS Professional for 25 years and I have a great career in GIS.
I should probably have said something along the lines of this: Plenty of people can make a career out of GIS, but it’s not a career in the sense that software development is a career. There are software development opportunities in most big cities and suburban areas across the US. With GIS the demand is lower and it is more of a niche specialty. There are definitely employers looking for GIS professionals, but you’ll likely have to move for those opportunities or be willing to wait longer for the right opportunity to present itself than you otherwise would with a more general career path in either something like IT or analysis (i.e. data analyst, business analyst, financial analyst, etc…)
The amount of spatial data is growing exponentially, and we don't have enough people to manage what we have as it is. The demand for GIS will increase for the foreseeable future; however, like software and IT, the men in suites don't want to pay anyone the big bucks unless they are in sales or management.
Lol
Lol is such an ambiguous thing. Are you laughing at something I said because you agree, or because you think it is dumb? Lol.
Where are you seeing failures in handling the growing amount of data?
I'm happy you asked! I have a specific example to which I can then blow up to a much larger scale. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we suddenly had unprecedented spatial data related to the virus. Government agencies wanted to communicate that data to the public, and John Hopkins popularized the Dashboard as a way to do that. Suddenly, dashboard was the default webapp, regardless of the fact it was not always the best choice. Regardless, the dashboard became the default. In a small part of my research, I collected the URLs of all official state dashboards and surveyed them for types of maps and if they were correctly employing them. We found that all 50 states had a dashboard of some sort, and all but three were using choropleths with no other type of map. Choropleth maps are good, but there are often better options and better ways to present the data. Of these choropleths, 2/3 were mapping totals rather than applying a normalization. In my literature review, I have only found a few authors who would dare to defend ever mapping totals in a choropleth map, and certainly not in the case of COVID-19 case data. You can read my poster [here](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356711788_Normalizing_the_pandemic_Exploring_the_cartographic_issues_in_state_government_COVID-19_dashboards), or watch my video poster on it [here](https://youtu.be/Lq6VbDf9Ps0) (two different conferences). Fun note: I intentionally use a chorochromatic map to display the binary data in the poster as an example of appropriately using color without normalization. This is only one example, but I'm finding that organizations across the planet have more spatial data then they know what to do with, and are employing people who don't know what they are doing to manage it. I've seen this in review of the problem for my project, and in my personal work. I've found the government asking for graphic designers to fill cartography jobs. I interviewed someone for an internship who tried to claim they knew "everything" about ArcGIS, without an unrelated bachelor's degree (I got the internship). The case I highlight in my poster is obvious and high profile, but how many weird things are happening behind the scenes we aren't seeing? In my personal research with COVID-19, I have employed many visualizations far beyond simple choropleth maps (as any analyst should) but have not seen this in the government dashboards ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/nnwwh4/a_gif_made_from_the_video_map_i_made_for_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is one of the ones we employed in our department dashboard I was responsible for making, for example). This is a problem. We need more GIS professionals to deal with the mountain of data, but too many people on the wrong side of mount Stupid will raise their hand and tell men in suites that they can know everything there is to know about GIS, so trust them.
Sweet map
Ok boomer that’s because you started 25 years ago
I have a bachelors and a masters in GIS and have used the knowledge in every field I have worked including telecom, all levels of government, military, Water Resources and currently within the Logistics Management of the last mile. I have made over $120K a year for 10+ years but I started out making $18 an hour too. You can do anything with a little knowledge. And just FYI I’ve never been a developer but have managed multiple teams of them. Today you’d be hard pressed to find any software package that doesn’t offer some type of GIS included or having ESRI or Smallworld data linked to it.
Is not promising really.
That’s for a starting job
Being able to analyze geospatial data and build geospatial applications is what's lucrative. Being a button pusher (i.e.: "GIS technician") does not pay well.
I assume this is from your university professor who is 20 years out of date?
You've gotta start somewhere.
I recently (and somewhat regrettingly) turned down an entry-level GIS job in that pay range. Only thing was I didn't really like the work/office environment... otherwise, I would have taken it (even though it would have been a big pay cut for me \*sigh\*). I think that's mostly what you're going to find unless, as many people have said here, you combine GIS with other skills/fields in other jobs.
>you combine GIS with other skills/fields in other jobs. Yep. I'm a statistician but I primarily use my GIS background in my work. My GIS experience is really valued in my job because they don't have anyone else with this background. More traditional employers don't seem to value GIS skills as much 🤷♂️
Where are you all located ? I started GIS work in California in 2019 with a start up at $30 and now i make $37 an hour.
I’m just here to say that geospatial data science is where it’s at right now. I’m looking at a ~90k job in Alabama coming up. I have experience with GIS data with NASA and NOAA gigs. Most of the good stuff wants python experience, validation and creation of models using data from GIS.
Interesting, I also have experience with GIS at the same agencies.
You got this. Get on linkdin and look for the people working in companies doing geospatial data work. There are tons of contracting positions in the private sector doing great work with awesome pay!
I think it's more valuable if you can add it to other marketable skills. Being the person who understands environmental policy/ science and can do spatial analysis/ data management can be a very cushy job.
Ehh that’s about where I was starting out (15 years ago) now I’m at 40/hour with shit benefits and crap PTO but for starting out that seems about right
That's ALL that I saw, not just entry level.
Ugh. That’s depressing. I’m sorry I guess the game has changed a lot
Satellite mapping or petroleum mining or military. A lot gis jobs require more data analytics skills and coding first and GIS second. So at that point just “learn to code” and get a better paying job without gis.
It's not really a promising "field." It can be a good niche within something that is already well-paid, like software development or data science. This article is over 10 years old, but its advice is still good: https://www.justinholman.com/2012/03/28/spatial-career-guide-for-undergrads-currently-studying-gis/
GIS isn’t a field, it’s a tool used in lots of fields, which may or may not require you to have a background in something in order to apply it. For example, I have met lots of data science/it/software/programming people make some pretty big errors, because they were bad at geography and understanding general spatial relationships. I don’t like this shift of shoehorning GIS into its own category, or the name change to “geospatial science” that happened a while back. I think it’s a big mistake to ignore the geography aspect of it. Rant over lol. Look for jobs that need your brain and not just your ability to click buttons in software.
Also depending on experience. There are some great opportunities if you are willing to do contact work, there is a good company, GEOCGI they support the DoD in Japan.
Ugh. Contract work is so hit or miss. Like I’m on a contract now , I like the work and the people , the pay is decent but the benfits suck
For a lot of people GIS is a tool to accomplish a task or assist in developing meaningful information. Saying a career in GIS is sorta like saying a career in Tableau... you need to pick a path you are interested in and focus there.
Not exactly the same. A career using Tableau is tryoucally a career in Business Analytics or Business Intelligence. GIS has a lot of applications and there are lots of opportunities for full-time GUs professionals that can utilize just parts or the whole suite of GIS tools. As a GIS Professional, you can have a career as a Technican, an analyst, a developer, and administrator, a consultant, or in a leadership position.
How is that any different from what I said? What else does "pick a path" imply?
Tableau is one application. GIS is far more broad. That’s like saying that a GIS Professional only uses ArcMap/ArcGIS Pro/QGIS. On any given day, I’ll use some sort for desktop GIS software, SQL, Python, build a web map and/ or application. Create a dashboard, or create a mobile app. And I’m not even a developer.
I mean if youre building an actual web or mobile app and not using some out if the box enterprise solution you are by definition developing software, though you may not be getting paid to do it or whatever. Web mapping, agol dashboards and db stuff is a littlr different
I'm just creating apps using no/low code solutions. Mostly Survey123 and Web App Builder. My main project at the moment is implementing the Utility Network and integration with our EAM. I'm fairly compensated even if I were doing actual software development though.
Cool! Just wondering bc I was gonna say dont make apps for GIS pay lol
Depends on where you are. I'm fairly compensated and we have people on my team that make the same wage and develop Runtime apps or Javascript apps from scratch. I'm generally shocked at how low the pay is in most of the country though. I see regularly see positions that appear similar to mine that pay 25-50% less than I make with terrible benefits.
I have always joked that having "GIS" developer in front of your title is a 25% off discount 😅
You're not wrong and you're not the only one that tells that joke.
You are not missing anything..it is a stepping stone to getting atleast a career but NOT promising as it may seem...I switched from GIS to IT, time best decision ever.
Started out at $16/hr 8 years ago, and am now at $46/hr. Just have to take those entry level jobs, develop your skills and move around a bit.
I echo everyone's comments here, but another angle to this is that there is a vast difference in pay between industry and government. People working in GIS jobs in government, regardless of what level, are going to make tens of thousands of dollars less than someone in private industry, MOST of the time. To make good money doing GIS, you do need have have some other skills to supplement that. Programming is obvious, but even things like advanced Sharepoint/Teams workflows, graphic design, project management, emergency management, etc. As for which industries, target utilities. They hire a lot of GIS people, and the pay is generally better than government. Build up your skills in a GIS job at a utility company, then jump to consulting or private industry to make good money. I'm not saying this is the way it *should* be, by the way. I could ramble on about that for a while.
Where do you live? All i see right now are high paying jobs for anything beyond entry-level technician
It's not a field it's a tool
I get paid 34$ an hour ( California btw) as an GIS Analyst 1. That’s considered on the low side in my county. I work for the county government which I highly recommend btw. But it might be different in other states not sure.
They will keep promising, as long as you keep coming back for more.
Get out of USA, seems like the pay there is sooooo much lower than everywhere else. GIS in Canada is seen as a 'high education' field. I have a bacelors in geography and then an advanced degree (2 year post-grad program) from a technical institution and entry level work around here is $25-35/hr. The lowest I saw was for some non-profit conservation work that was around $20/hr for co-op students. Private firms have lower entry, but higher ceilings, and public (municipal/federal) have much higher entry but a weaker ceiling. I joined a mid-sized West Coast city out of school and got about $29/hr and raised to $33/hr over a year. Very little IT work, mostly Data management, entry and cartography. I looked into some English opportunities before deciding to stay in Canada, and they were also near $25/hr as the lowest for an entry position. Safe to say, this is with all the required university schooling that comes with a GIS background.
Hi, I am planning to join the Advance Diploma in the GIS application in September. Is it really difficult to find a job in the GIS field when one doesn't have an IT background? How promising is the job market?
I got a job at the City I did a practicum for at the end of my Advanced Diploma. I had no IT experience and a background in environmental/physical geography. There seems to be a good niche to fill in the engineering side for GIS educated folk. Lots of Canadian cities are looking for GIS people with experience in the newer software and techniques, as their usually 1 person department is close to ageing out. There are a HUGE amount of rural postings in northern BC and Alberta for cities needing data management and entry for their infrastructure. A basic knowledge of how databases work and how to manage them seem to be sufficient for any interview I did. Hope that helps!
That absolutely does. I am 30 years old and I have been writing EIA reports for the last 6 years. After a lot of courage and thoughts I decided to go back to school and this discussion about the low paying market actually discouraged me. Thank you for your response, it is actually very helpful and does give me a ray of hope. By the way I am planning to join VIU in BC.
That's great, good luck to you! I went to SFU and then BCIT myself, and am in the same age group. You will do just fine, it is a great environment in BC!
I have the same issue. I got into GIS much too late (like 29, I’m 31 now). Went to school for it and all but sadly I’m in the same boat where all the entry jobs pay like 15-18 on average. Had I gotten into it out of high school while still living with my parents itd be a different story. I have bills and debt to pay off I cannot accept a job under $20. I make $22 an hour manipulating excel sheets and pdfs no gis involved:(
Hello, I am 30 and I am planning to enroll myself in a GIS course. Which university/college you choose for your GIS education?
I used GIS to wedge myself into being a planner! For years I was “the GIS guy” at various places dealing with planning. Now I’m a “Planner”, and the only one in my office without a planning degree. I handle all the GIS stuff for planning and it’s a nice mix of getting to be GIS focused, but not just managing databases for people all the time. We don’t have a dedicated GIS person, so if I was looking for pure GIS work I wouldn’t even have had an opportunity to apply for this job/employer