How To Become A Laboratory Specialist: What It Is and Career Path

What is a laboratory specialist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Benjamin Ford,

Xenia Morin Ph.D.

The primary role of a laboratory specialist is to support laboratory capacity-building tasks. The duties vary from one employer to another. As a laboratory specialist, you'll be responsible for improving the detection and identification of diseases of public health importance. You'll improve the quality of surveillance systems for pathogens of the highest public health concern. Also, you'll provide technical assistance and training to laboratories to support overall capacity building and continuous improvement schemes. Additionally, you'll help laboratories in the management and sharing of data.

Most employers prefer applicants with a bachelor's degree in life sciences or a related field. Applicants must have prior work experience. You must be conversant with laboratory diagnosis and biosafety regulations. You must also be proficient in basic computer software. Having good communication, interpersonal, organization, problem-solving, and presentation skills is essential. Laboratory specialists earn an average gross salary of $43,994, which ranges from $31,000 to $62,000.

What general advice would you give to a laboratory specialist?

Benjamin Ford

Professor and Chair, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Students graduating this year have come through a life-changing year. I'd encourage them to embrace that change. Rather than putting this year behind them and moving on, I'd like graduates to reflect on what worked and didn't work in the past year, and use that reflection to improve themselves and the world. This could be as simple as continuing to hone the time management skills we were all forced to develop, or as large as working to dismantle one of the structural inequalities that became glaringly apparent as nations struggled with health and economy.

ScoreLaboratory SpecialistUS Average

Salary

3.9

Avg. Salary $50,357

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.6

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

9.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.80%

Asian 11.97%

Black or African American 10.82%

Hispanic or Latino 17.34%

Unknown 5.12%

White 53.95%

Gender

female 52.73%

male 47.27%

Age - 44

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 - 44

Stress level

9.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a laboratory specialist

Explore laboratory specialist education requirements

Most common laboratory specialist degrees

Bachelor's

53.2 %

Associate

18.5 %

High School Diploma

10.9 %

Start to develop specific laboratory specialist skills

Skills	Percentages
Chemistry	10.43%
Patients	9.56%
Test Results	7.65%
Laboratory Tests	7.13%
Patient Care	6.07%

Complete relevant laboratory specialist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New laboratory specialists 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 a laboratory specialist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real laboratory specialist resumes.

Research laboratory specialist duties and responsibilities

Manage patient, and corporate information with compassion and confidentiality.
Process specimens in the areas of chemistry, toxicology, hematology, urinalysis, coagulation, serology, and microbiology.
Perform general routine clinical laboratory testing in the areas of clinical chemistry, hematology, coagulation, urinalysis and blood bank.
Perform DNA and RNA isolation, standard and real time PCR, primer design, gene sequence analysis.

Prepare your laboratory specialist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your laboratory specialist 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 a laboratory specialist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable laboratory specialist resume templates

Build a professional laboratory specialist 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 laboratory specialist resume.