How To Become An Environmental Scientist Lead: What It Is and Career Path

What is an environmental scientist lead and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Shannon Farrell Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an environmental scientist lead. For example, did you know that they make an average of $47.18 an hour? That's $98,128 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 3,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to an environmental scientist lead?

Shannon Farrell Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Your career path is not likely to be one step after another in the same prescribed direction. In today's unique circumstances, be prepared to be flexible, open-minded, and alert for new and unexpected opportunities. Be ready to take multiple jobs in sequence - it is exceedingly rare these days that one finds their 'forever' long term job right off the bat and right out of undergrad. Try things, test, experiment - identifying what spheres of work you like and what spheres you don't like is all a valuable part of data gathering and adaptively moving forward.

If it is hard to find a job in your ideal field, find jobs that provide the opportunity for developing crossover skills: technical and field skills, research skills, writing skills, communication, or management skills. Leverage opportunities to improve and display your executive function skills - planning, organizing, managing, leadership, mentorship, etc. These can all be valuable efforts, even when you aren't working in your preferred scientific field. Be your advocate - make contacts, network, ask for advice, don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone (it may be uncomfortable, but you will survive!)

ScoreEnvironmental Scientist LeadUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $98,128

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.77%

Asian 5.03%

Black or African American 3.09%

Hispanic or Latino 6.19%

Unknown 3.68%

White 81.24%

Gender

female 30.99%

male 69.01%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.1

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.7

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an environmental scientist lead

Explore environmental scientist lead education requirements

Most common environmental scientist lead degrees

Bachelor's

67.7 %

Master's

24.6 %

Associate

4.6 %

Start to develop specific environmental scientist lead skills

Skills	Percentages
Water Quality	32.02%
Technical Support	31.99%
Storm Water	6.93%
GIS	5.72%
Remote Sensing	5.57%

Complete relevant environmental scientist lead training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New environmental scientist leads learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an environmental scientist lead based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real environmental scientist lead resumes.

Research environmental scientist lead duties and responsibilities

Develop and manage company EHS compliance processes in accordance with current and upcoming regulatory mandates.
Conduct weekly NPDES and rain event inspections.
Generate technical documents, reports, and engineer plans for identifying and locating structures in a GIS platform.
Advise and support GIS technicians on actual field data to represent electronic data accurately.

Get environmental scientist lead experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become an environmental scientist lead. The most common roles before becoming an environmental scientist lead include environmental scientist, environmental inspector team lead and biological science technician.

Prepare your environmental scientist lead resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your environmental scientist lead resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an environmental scientist lead resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable environmental scientist lead resume templates

Build a professional environmental scientist lead resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your environmental scientist lead resume.