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Job outlook for analytical technicians in the United States
Analytical technician job growth summary. After extensive research, interviews, and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
The projected analytical technician job growth rate is 4% from 2018-2028.
About 2,700 new jobs for analytical technicians are projected over the next decade.
Analytical technician salaries have increased 9% for analytical technicians in the last 5 years.
There are over 6,410 analytical technicians currently employed in the United States.
There are 48,581 active analytical technician job openings in the US.
The average analytical technician salary is $69,177.
Are analytical technician jobs in demand?
Analytical technician job and salary trends over time
Analytical technician jobs over time
Analytical technician job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 6,410 | 0.00% |
| 2020 | 7,054 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 7,306 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 7,277 | 0.00% |
| 2017 | 7,172 | 0.00% |
Average analytical technician salary over time
Analytical technician salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $69,177 | $33.26 | +1.1% |
| 2024 | $68,399 | $32.88 | +2.3% |
| 2023 | $66,872 | $32.15 | +1.9% |
| 2022 | $65,650 | $31.56 | +3.1% |
| 2021 | $63,650 | $30.60 | +2.6% |
Analytical technician jobs by state
Most common states for analytical technicians
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 1,249 | 18% |
| 2 | Alaska | 739,795 | 112 | 15% |
| 3 | Maine | 1,335,907 | 171 | 13% |
| 4 | Delaware | 961,939 | 127 | 13% |
| 5 | Minnesota | 5,576,606 | 643 | 12% |
| 6 | New Hampshire | 1,342,795 | 157 | 12% |
| 7 | Vermont | 623,657 | 76 | 12% |
| 8 | Iowa | 3,145,711 | 348 | 11% |
| 9 | Missouri | 6,113,532 | 587 | 10% |
| 10 | Utah | 3,101,833 | 303 | 10% |
| 11 | Rhode Island | 1,059,639 | 103 | 10% |
| 12 | North Carolina | 10,273,419 | 949 | 9% |
| 13 | New Jersey | 9,005,644 | 785 | 9% |
| 14 | Maryland | 6,052,177 | 567 | 9% |
| 15 | Wisconsin | 5,795,483 | 517 | 9% |
| 16 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 495 | 9% |
| 17 | Connecticut | 3,588,184 | 316 | 9% |
| 18 | Nebraska | 1,920,076 | 181 | 9% |
| 19 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 63 | 9% |
| 20 | New York | 19,849,399 | 1,511 | 8% |
Most common cities for analytical technicians
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Midland | 1 | 2% | $61,599 |
| 2 | Durham | 2 | 1% | $62,802 |
| 3 | Toledo | 2 | 1% | $68,903 |
| 4 | Framingham | 1 | 1% | $88,036 |
| 5 | Boston | 3 | 0% | $88,001 |
| 6 | Indianapolis | 1 | 0% | $60,764 |
Analytical Technician job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of analytical technician experts
Northern Michigan University
Queens University of Charlotte
Northern Kentucky University
Northern Kentucky University
Southwestern College
College of Idaho
Ohio University Southern
Wake Forest University
University of Utah
Boston College
Point Loma Nazarene University
High Point University
Georgia College and State University
Cleveland Community College
Elmira College
University of the Sciences
Oral Roberts University
Norfolk State University
Martin Renaldi MT (ASCP), MPA
Assistant Professor / MLS Program DirectorNorthern Michigan University
Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, And Treatment Professions
What Analytical Technician skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Martin Renaldi MT (ASCP), MPA: The skills that will be required in the lab tech milieu over the next 3-5 years are the same ones that are necessary now, which is what makes the lab tech profession so lucrative. Foundational laboratory skills are a must now and will be must in the future. Once the aspiring lab tech learns and masters the foundational work, such as lab math, pipetting, dilution schemes, titrating, proper glassware use and application, basic spectrophotometry, transformational weights and measures, microscopy, etc. then they'll be readily adaptable for employment in any laboratory setting.
Justin Moss
Assistant ProfessorQueens University of Charlotte
Chemistry
What general advice would you give to an Analytical Technician?
Justin Moss: Chemistry is a good profession to enter due to its evolving and interdisciplinary nature, job demand, competitive salaries, and rewarding work.
What Analytical Technician skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Isabelle Lagadic Ph.D.: I’ve met employers asking me if I could teach my students basic skills like “being on time”, “writing a proper email”, “clearly and carefully documenting their work”, “using critical thinking to stop a recording or an experiment when it is obvious that it is not working”. Those very basic skills that everyone takes for granted in addition of basic technical skills are going to become the most prevalent in the coming years. What’s scary is the collision between the inevitable advancement of Ai in this field and this lack of basic skills. It is difficult to train people on tomorrow’s skills if they don’t already master today’s skills.
What general advice would you give to an Analytical Technician?
Konstantinos Vogiatzis: Chemistry is a scientific field that it stands by itself, but at the same time it offers the fundamental knowledge to other disciplines such as materials science, polymers, spectroscopy, biochemistry, and agriculture. This interdisciplinary character is pivotal for many technological applications related to medicine, environment, electronics, etc.
What will help Analytical Technicians increase their earning potential?
Dr. Jingbo Liu PhD: A chemist’s day-to-day tasks vary greatly depending on their specific role and field. However, everyday tasks include designing and conducting experiments, analyzing data, writing reports, and maintaining safety protocols in the laboratory. Someone entering the field might start as a laboratory assistant or technician, preparing samples, maintaining equipment, and assisting with experiments and research. They could also be involved in data analysis, using various software tools to interpret and visualize experimental results. Furthermore, they may participate in team meetings to discuss their findings and plan future research directions. It’s a dynamic and exciting field with plenty of opportunities for learning and growth.
What will help Analytical Technicians increase their earning potential?
Patrick Hare: Facility with using and interpreting AI results is an obvious growing need. Many of those skills are just applied analytical and critical thinking. The trick will be to do the applying and keep them fresh. Understanding how the systems work will also be useful.
What Analytical Technician skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
David Hecht Ph.D.: Not sure- with a solid chemistry bkg and training, graduates should be equipped to learn and adapt as needed. Soft skills are VERY important and need to be developed.
What general advice would you give to an Analytical Technician?
Bonnie Cantrell: Chemistry is the backbone to most protocols for the material, medical, and biological sciences.
Without chemistry, we would not know many of the things we know today. It will always be relevant in
helping change the scientific world as we know it. The advancements in science technology alone makes
chemistry today more exciting than ever. Just with balances from 1980's to now, we went from only
being able to weigh with counter balance weights to having a digital scale read accurately to 0.001
milligrams. Chemistry used to be more theoretical and only explainable from what we could make react
together. Now we have technology that can visualize the chemical composition and structure allowing
for us to create solutions to problems we could only dream of before. Whether you are wanting danger,
to save lives, or to help make this planet a better place to live, being a chemist can help you fuel your
passions.
What Analytical Technician skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Bonnie Cantrell: When I ask students and faculty what they enjoy about being a chemist, their answers are
always related to enjoying the science. This includes getting to work with lasers, making drugs,
exploding things, setting things on fire, solving problems, explaining the unexplainable, and never
knowing what you are going to find out, but enjoying the adventure. There is a thrill to science that can
be coupled with any moral cause. Those that get to choose their research have even more freedom to
structure what they do to their passions. Making the world a better place and having fun while doing it
is a goal for a lot of scientists. Being a chemist allows thousands of people to do that every day making
chemistry a very rewarding career.
With any job it is usually the work load and/or regulations that make the job less enjoyable.
Working with chemicals can be exciting, but it can also be extremely dangerous to our health and those
around us. As worker safety became more of a focus for the government, the chemical industry changed
drastically with a focus on laboratory safety. This meant more regulations and documentation. Grants
are also extremely competitive and the review process on a manuscript is very time consuming. A
majority of advanced level chemists are forced into doing more paperwork and less hands-on laboratory
science as they gain more responsibilities. Essentially the whole reason they enjoyed doing science is
buried in paperwork.
While all chemists would like more time to do science, it is their mentees that really make it
worth it. There is a pride in being able to help someone else succeed that is seen on every professors'
face when their student gets into a great school, a great job, finally figures out that problem, etc. It is
the alumni coming back and talking about the professors that inspired them to be successful in some
way. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning. The feeling of being able to do more than I
physically can myself because I am in proxy mentoring hundreds of people every year to be the best
they can be. I can fail in my life, but still have a lasting legacy and positive impact through others. That is
what makes chemistry great.
Kyle Kemats Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of InstructionOhio University Southern
Chemistry Department
What hard/technical skills are most important for Analytical Technicians?
Kyle Kemats Ph.D.: As I mentioned in question 1, training/experience on various instruments is the most important for industry/research jobs. For teaching positions, experience with different pedagogical/education techniques will be helpful for a potential candidate.
Brian Mendenhall
Associate Director and Career CoachWake Forest University
Office of Personal and Career Development
What soft skills should all Analytical Technicians possess?
Brian Mendenhall: In the past, the most important attributes have been leadership and problem-solving skills. If the pandemic has taught us anything, the most important attribute is the ability to work with others and get along in multiple virtual and in-person environments. The rest seem elementary and are all dependent on each other. To work well on a team, you need to problem-solve, both on the topic and on how to share information. To solve problems, you need to be analytical and quantitative. Certainly, to do this well, you need to communicate across diverse audiences and levels of understanding. The National Association of Colleges and Employers surveys employers on these priorities and updates the results frequently. (see below for your reference)
Ability to work in a team 81.0%
Problem-solving skills 79.0%
Analytical/quantitative skills 76.1%
Communication skills (verbal) 73.2%
Communication skills (written)
https://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/the-key-attributes-employers-seek-on-college-graduates-resumes/
Shelley Minteer Ph.D.
Dale and Susan Poulter Endowed Chair in Biological Chemistry, Associate Chair of ChemistryUniversity of Utah
Department Of Chemistry
What skills stand out on Analytical Technician resumes?
Shelley Minteer Ph.D.: The skills that stand out are research experience, characterization instrumentation experience, and more recently, data science experience and coding experience, as machine learning and AI become more and more important in chemistry.
Dunwei Wang Ph.D.
Margaret A & Thomas A Vanderslice Chair in Chemistry, Professor of Chemistry, Chairperson of Chemistry DepartmentBoston College
Chemistry Department
What soft skills should all Analytical Technicians possess?
Dunwei Wang Ph.D.: Problem-solving skills. When presented with a problem, knowing where to go to find information to solve it.
What hard/technical skills are most important for Analytical Technicians?
Dunwei Wang Ph.D.: Chemistry is a diverse field. As a foundational discipline, it enables several sub-fields and supports emerging new fields. As one example, our graduates become experts in medical research, health care, and scientists and engineers in many other fields. Depending on the different career goals, what is important can be drastically different. Generally speaking, doing bench work (either in the lab or on a computer) should be a good skill to have at graduation.
What technical skills for an Analytical Technician stand out to employers?
Dr. Matthieu Rouffet Ph.D.: Our PLNU graduates have a lot of hands-on experience (most courses have a lab component, and many of our students do summer research with a faculty member for two summers allowing them to spend over 800 hours in a lab), so employers regularly comment on the fact that they are ready to go from day one.
Dr. Brian Augustine Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and ChairHigh Point University
Department of Chemistry
What type of skills will young Analytical Technicians need?
Dr. Brian Augustine Ph.D.: Students always need foundational technical skills. In addition to skills specific to chemistry and biochemistry, strong communication and interpersonal skills such as writing, speaking, and collaboration are vital, as are quantitative reasoning skills such as data analytics, statistical analysis, and programming.
What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for Analytical Technicians in the next 3-5 years?
Peter Rosado: Right now, with COVID-19, I feel that the field of medicinal chemistry/biotechnology is going to see a boom. Materials science is also on the rise with alternative energies and new restorative therapies. The area of chemistry is not a more extended purist and more integrated/interdisciplinary. No longer can you call yourself an "inorganic chemist" or an "analytical chemist"? Graduates should be aware that flexibility and eagerness to learn new things is critical here. These are the skills obtained from a college degree, which is not the only subject matter. But the ability to think through and solve problems, be flexible, adaptable, etc.
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Analytical Technicians?
Lynn Monteith: The pandemic is already impacting new graduates' ability to secure jobs. It is also affecting students who are currently enrolled in college courses. Some students choose to take a year off from school with hopes of returning to campus after the pandemic is over.
Will there be an enduring impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Analytical Technicians?
Dr. Betsy Smith: I am sure the pandemic is going to have lasting effects on everything, chemistry included. I think all industries are going to continue allowing more working from home when it's appropriate. For bench chemists, that will rarely mean fully at-home because of lab work, but it might mean going in, setting up an automated reactor, and monitoring it from home while analyzing data. There will be a lot more research into coronaviruses and how to treat coronavirus infections. That seems like it would be more biological or medical, but there's a lot of chemistry involved in drugs and drug design, and a lot of overlap between chemistry and biology.
John Tomsho Ph.D.
Director, Graduate Programs in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacognosy Co-Director, Chemistry Core Facility NMR Facility Director Associate Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryUniversity of the Sciences
Department of of Chemistry and Biochemistry
What general advice would you give to an Analytical Technician?
John Tomsho Ph.D.: Keep an open mind and consider all career options available to you. Also, seriously consider temp agencies and other short-term/contract employment opportunities. Many companies will hire their permanent employees from their ranks of contract workers. These short assignments can primarily serve the purpose of a 6-12 month interview period.
Dr. William Collier Ph.D.
Professor of ChemistryOral Roberts University
Chemistry and Biology
What general advice would you give to an Analytical Technician?
Dr. William Collier Ph.D.: Know where you want to go, and head in that direction. Be open to a lot of different starting positions; you are young and can change at this point in your career reasonably quickly. In short, if an exciting job comes up, it is not exactly what you are looking for, but you need a job. You might be surprised to find out what you do and do not like about it. You can always change a few years down the line. Work hard, be honest, treat others right, be a team person, and leave excellent impressions of yourself. You will live happier, and be surprised at how far your reputation (for good or ill) will travel. Verbal references to your work skill, talent, and work behavior can carry more weight than a resume.
What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for Analytical Technicians in the next 3-5 years?
Suely Black Ph.D.: We cannot predict what new technologies will emerge, so it is essential to be adaptable and comfortable with learning how to use all kinds of techniques, mostly those that connect people.