CCollegeMatcher

Historians

US occupation · SOC 19-3093

Job titles people report: Collections Specialist, County Historian, Historian, Historic Architectural Resources Curator, Historic Interpreter, Historic Preservation Coordinator, Historic Sites Registrar, Historical Interpreter, Research Historian, Researcher

Pay and outlook

Median annual wage, May 2025
$76,750
Half earn more, half earn less
Middle half earn
$57,290 – $99,990
25th to 75th percentile
People employed, May 2025
3,450
Wage and salary jobs (OEWS)
Projected change, 2025–35
+3%
Growing slower than all jobs (0% to under 3.5%)
Openings a year (projected)
300
New jobs plus replacing people who leave
Typical education to enter
Master's degree
BLS
  • All figures are for the United States as a whole. Pay varies a lot by state and city.
  • Wages are for everyone working in the occupation in May 2025, at every career stage. They are not starting salaries or figures for new graduates.
  • Growth and openings are BLS projections for 2025–35. They are estimates, not promises. Openings include jobs that open up when people retire or change occupation, not just new jobs.

What the work involves

Research, analyze, record, and interpret the past as recorded in sources, such as government and institutional records, newspapers and other periodicals, photographs, interviews, films, electronic media, and unpublished manuscripts, such as personal diaries and letters.

Main tasks

  • Gather historical data from sources such as archives, court records, diaries, news files, and photographs, as well as from books, pamphlets, and periodicals.
  • Organize data, and analyze and interpret its authenticity and relative significance.
  • Prepare publications and exhibits, or review those prepared by others, to ensure their historical accuracy.
  • Organize information for publication and for other means of dissemination, such as via storage media or the Internet.
  • Conduct historical research as a basis for the identification, conservation, and reconstruction of historic places and materials.
  • Conserve and preserve manuscripts, records, and other artifacts.
  • Present historical accounts in terms of individuals or social, ethnic, political, economic, or geographic groupings.
  • Research the history of a particular country or region, or of a specific time period.

Description and tasks from the O*NET® 31.0 Database.

Getting in

Typical education to enter (BLS)
Master's degree
O*NET Job Zone 5
Extensive preparation
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Interests it suits

The strongest of the six O*NET interest types for this occupation, highest first. The short glosses are ours.

  • Investigative: research, analysis and solving problems with ideas
  • Conventional: organising information, records and procedures
  • Artistic: creating, designing and self-expression

Fields of study that lead here

From the federal CIP–SOC crosswalk, which links 24 programmes to this occupation. A link means the programme prepares people for this kind of work. It doesn't mean the programme is required, or that it's the only route.

Health & Nursing

  • Medical/Health Humanities
  • History of Medicine

Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose Health & Nursing at the Major step.

Where many students take health & nursing

Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.

History

  • History, General
  • American History (United States)
  • European History
  • History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
  • Public/Applied History
  • Asian History
  • Canadian History
  • Military History
1 more programmes
  • History, Other

Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose History at the Major step.

Where many students take history

Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.

Architecture

  • Architectural History and Criticism, General
  • Architectural Conservation

Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose Architecture at the Major step.

Where many students take architecture

Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.

Other fields

Our college matcher doesn't offer this field as a major, so we can't suggest colleges for it here.

Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies

  • Historic Preservation and Conservation, General
  • Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis
  • Historic Preservation and Conservation, Other
  • Medieval and Renaissance Studies
  • Holocaust and Related Studies
  • Ancient Studies/Civilization
  • Classical, Ancient Mediterranean, and Near Eastern Studies and Archaeology
  • Classical and Ancient Studies, Other
3 more programmes
  • Maritime Studies
  • History and Language/Literature
  • History and Political Science

Related careers

Related occupations from the O*NET database, in its order.

← All careers

Sources

This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. CollegeMatcher has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET 31.0 Database · CC BY 4.0

Changes: we show the core tasks in the O*NET database with the highest importance ratings (up to eight, in that order), the top three O*NET interest types by score, and shortened Job Zone names. Titles, descriptions and task text are unchanged.

Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Projections, typical entry education and training: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025–35. Fields of study: NCES and BLS CIP 2020–SOC 2018 Crosswalk. All public domain. OEWS · Employment Projections · CIP–SOC crosswalk