CCollegeMatcher

Surveying and Mapping Technicians

US occupation · SOC 17-3031

Job titles people report: Field Surveyor, Land Survey Technician (Land Survey Tech), Land Surveyor, Mapping Editor, Mapping Technician (Mapping Tech), Photogrammetric Technician (Photogrammetric Tech), Rodman, Stereoplotter Operator, Survey Technician (Survey Tech), Surveying Technician (Surveying Tech)

Pay and outlook

Median annual wage, May 2025
$54,240
Half earn more, half earn less
Middle half earn
$45,430 – $66,700
25th to 75th percentile
People employed, May 2025
58,010
Wage and salary jobs (OEWS)
Projected change, 2025–35
+5.8%
At or above the all-jobs rate (3.5% to under 7%)
Openings a year (projected)
6,900
New jobs plus replacing people who leave
Typical education to enter
High school diploma or equivalent
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

Perform surveying and mapping duties, usually under the direction of an engineer, surveyor, cartographer, or photogrammetrist, to obtain data used for construction, mapmaking, boundary location, mining, or other purposes. May calculate mapmaking information and create maps from source data, such as surveying notes, aerial photography, satellite data, or other maps to show topographical features, political boundaries, and other features. May verify accuracy and completeness of maps.

Main tasks

  • Set out and recover stakes, marks, or other monumentation.
  • Search for section corners, property irons, or survey points.
  • Calculate latitudes, longitudes, angles, areas, or other information for mapmaking, using survey field notes or reference tables.
  • Enter Global Positioning System (GPS) data, legal deeds, field notes, or land survey reports into geographic information system (GIS) workstations so that information can be transformed into graphic land descriptions, such as maps and drawings.
  • Adjust and operate surveying instruments such as prisms, theodolites, electronic distance measuring equipment, or electronic data collectors.
  • Check all layers of maps to ensure accuracy, identifying and marking errors and making corrections.
  • Collect information needed to carry out new surveys, using source maps, previous survey data, photographs, computer records, or other relevant information.
  • Record survey measurements or descriptive data, using notes, drawings, sketches, or inked tracings.

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

Getting in

Typical education to enter (BLS)
High school diploma or equivalent
Training once hired: moderate-term on-the-job training
O*NET Job Zone 3
Medium preparation
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Interests it suits

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

  • Realistic: hands-on work with tools, machines, plants or animals
  • Conventional: organising information, records and procedures
  • Investigative: research, analysis and solving problems with ideas

Fields of study that lead here

From the federal CIP–SOC crosswalk, which links 3 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.

Social Sciences

  • Geography
  • Geographic Information Science and Cartography

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

Where many students take social sciences

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.

Engineering/Engineering-Related Technologies/Technicians

  • Surveying Technology/Surveying

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