There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a food safety scientist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $39.26 an hour? That's $81,665 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 7% and produce 2,300 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many food safety scientists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed math skills, observation skills and critical-thinking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a food safety scientist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 11.4% of food safety scientists included regulatory agencies, while 10.6% of resumes included safety data, and 9.5% of resumes included safety issues. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the food safety scientist job title. But what industry to start with? Most food safety scientists actually find jobs in the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a food safety scientist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 43.2% of food safety scientists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 21.6% of food safety scientists have master's degrees. Even though most food safety scientists have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a food safety scientist. When we researched the most common majors for a food safety scientist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on food safety scientist resumes include master's degree degrees or license degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a food safety scientist. In fact, many food safety scientist jobs require experience in a role such as safety specialist. Meanwhile, many food safety scientists also have previous career experience in roles such as associate or internship.
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In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of senior scientist you might progress to a role such as director eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title medical director.
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Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.4% of food safety scientists listed regulatory agencies on their resume, but soft skills such as math skills and observation skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a food safety scientist. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, and California. Food safety scientists make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $124,931. Whereas in Vermont and Maryland, they would average $119,539 and $109,183, respectively. While food safety scientists would only make an average of $106,164 in California, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Massachusetts
$124,931
Avg. Salary
2. Maryland
$109,184
Avg. Salary
3. Rhode Island
$99,499
Avg. Salary