How Much Money Does a Botanist Make?
Without plants, humans would die. Giving sustenance as well as providing oxygen, plants are the key element in the Earth's ecosystem. Botanists are the biological scientists who study plants, analyzing how they grow and develop, how they interact with their environment and are affected by human activity, as well as researching how they can help people, as medicine or as more productive food crops. Salary levels for the role are comparable with other specialized biological scientists.
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Average Pay
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For the purposes of its national employment survey conducted in May 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics classified botanists alongside other biological scientists, such as bio-physiologists who study the life processes of plants and animals and ecologists who research how organisms interact with their environment. The mean annual salary across this professional grouping was $71,310, which translates to an hourly pay rate of $34.28 and a monthly income of $5,943. Those among the top 10 percent of earners received salaries of over $102,300 per year, while their contemporaries in the corresponding bottom bracket earned less than $38,780. At the time of publication, Indeed.com put the average yearly pay for a botanist at $68,000.
Pay by Industry
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According to the bureau's figures, the vast majority of botanists and their fellow biological scientists work for the federal executive branch. The mean annual wage within this sector was reported as $73,530. Positions within scientific research and development services paid slightly more, with a mean of $77,050, while individuals in academia -- colleges, universities and professional schools -- earned a yearly mean of $59,200. Positions within state government agencies were listed at $64,530, while pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing paid a mean of $74,670.
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Pay by Location
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Location can also affect a botanist's wage level. Across all industry sectors, a practitioner was likely to secure the highest pay in Maryland, which had an annual mean of $93,330. Maine and Virginia were also listed as lucrative states to work in, with means of $86,680 and $84,450, respectively. Washington and Texas had almost identical pay rates -- $67,540 and $67,350, respectively -- while Montana was among the states with the lowest salaries, with a mean of just $58,920.
Outlook
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The bureau expects employment opportunities for biological scientists of all kinds, including botanists, to increase by around 21 percent through 2018. This exceeds estimates of growth for the nation as a whole across all occupations, put at between 7 percent and 13 percent over the same time. The continued growth of the biotechnology industry and its application to more sectors of industry will be the primary motivation for this growth and should see wage levels remain competitive in the immediate future.
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