Sociologists - What do Sociologists do?

Work Environment

Sociologists held about 3,000 jobs in 2020. The largest employers of sociologists were as follows:

Research and development in the social sciences and humanities - 37%
Educational services; state, local, and private - 19%
State government, excluding education and hospitals - 17%
Self-employed workers - 11%

Sociologists typically work in an office. They may work outside of an office setting when conducting research through interviews or observations or presenting research results.

Work Schedules

Most sociologists work full time during regular business hours.

Job Outlook

Employment of sociologists is projected to grow 5 percent from 2020 to 2030, slower than the average for all occupations.

Despite limited employment growth, about 300 openings for sociologists are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Most of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.

Employment

Sociologists will continue to be needed to apply sociological research to other disciplines. For example, sociologists may collaborate with researchers in other social sciences, such as economists, psychologists, and survey researchers, to study how social structures or groups influence policy decisions about health, education, politics, criminal justice, business, or economics.

Earnings

The median annual wage for sociologists was $92,910 in May 2021. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $60,770, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $135,420.

In May 2021, the median annual wages for sociologists in the top industries in which they worked were as follows: