Gauge your wage with our latest figures.

If you’re wondering how your wages and benefits measure up to others’ in the country, look no further. Through an unofficial poll on POB Online of almost 300 respondents, and through our biennial survey completed by 567 respondents, we gathered current facts and feelings on salaries and benefits in the profession of land surveying and mapping. Our updated biennial survey indicates a marginal increase in overall wages and benefits from the 2001 survey, but some numbers may surprise you. Take the median salary of a president/owner/partner in the private sector for instance. Our figures show that someone in one of these positions makes an average of $75,000 in the southern region but only $60,000 in the central region. A rodperson in private practice in the eastern United States may take home more than $42,500, but the central region rodperson may take home near $10K less. We must consider, of course, that the cost of living varies among regions, as do the types of jobs surveyors do.

What may be equally surprising is that 88 percent of our online respondents told us they have not received any raise in their salaries upon completion of CEUs (or the like). With more states requiring continuing education and the ongoing struggle to recruit new surveyors into the profession, this percentage (and others) defeats efforts of strengthening a profession that is centuries old. Our biennial survey respondents told us the percentage their incomes have increased, if any, after achieving licensure; the numbers are scattered. What’s more, a disincentive is associated with the four-year degree requirement. From our figures, a high school graduate working in the private sector makes as much ($60,000) as a surveyor with a bachelor’s degree in the private sector!