There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a quality assurance chemist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $25.78 an hour? That's $53,626 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 3,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many quality assurance chemists 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 analytical skills, math skills and perseverance.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a quality assurance chemist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 10.3% of quality assurance chemists included lab equipment, while 8.8% of resumes included raw materials, and 6.4% of resumes included final product. 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 quality assurance chemist job title. But what industry to start with? Most quality assurance chemists actually find jobs in the manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries.
If you're interested in becoming a quality assurance chemist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 59.6% of quality assurance chemists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 28.5% of quality assurance chemists have master's degrees. Even though most quality assurance chemists 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 quality assurance chemist. When we researched the most common majors for a quality assurance chemist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on quality assurance chemist resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a quality assurance chemist. In fact, many quality assurance chemist jobs require experience in a role such as laboratory technician. Meanwhile, many quality assurance chemists also have previous career experience in roles such as chemist or research assistant.
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As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a quality assurance chemist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as chemist, progress to a title such as laboratory manager and then eventually end up with the title quality assurance 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, 10.3% of quality assurance chemists listed lab equipment on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and math skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a quality assurance chemist. The best states for people in this position are Delaware, Virginia, Vermont, and New Jersey. Quality assurance chemists make the most in Delaware with an average salary of $76,073. Whereas in Virginia and Vermont, they would average $74,659 and $68,391, respectively. While quality assurance chemists would only make an average of $67,508 in New Jersey, 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. Delaware
$76,073
Avg. Salary
2. New Jersey
$67,508
Avg. Salary
3. Virginia
$74,660
Avg. Salary