Hydrologists

High pay & lowrisk
Minimal Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
6.1/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

19% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Decision-making and problem solving

Very important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
Jobs that also use this strength

Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
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Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
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Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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Show 4 more strengths

Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Communicating with people outside the organization

Quite important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 46 votes

29% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 19% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Hydrologists will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

View sentiment trend

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Hydrologists was $92,060 ($44 per hour).

The median annual wage for Hydrologists was 86.0% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Hydrologists' job openings is expected to decline 0.1% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 5,720 people employed as 'Hydrologists' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 26 thousand people are employed as 'Hydrologists'.

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What people are saying (3)

Alex (Moderate)
25 Jul 2025 17:15
It depends. A hydrologist whose main occupation is field work will not geht automated away so easily for obvious reasons in the coming years. However, from my own experience, most field work is actually done by technical staff, and hydrologists are mainly office workers who analyze field data, run computer simulations, interpret their results and communicate their findings. I think most of that will be affected pretty strongly by AI in the coming years (coding, reporting, flood prediction, etc.), although for the largest part in a way that supports and complements humans rather than completely replacing them. Still, I think hydrologists should try to keep track of AI applications in their field and actively engage with the technology behind it.
Kevin M. (Low)
02 Jul 2024 11:12
It’s just a job that needs humans, there are few hydrologists to begin with (groundwater engineers) and they would need to code robots to do that which will probably not happen
Anonymous
15 Aug 2019 02:30
Good lol I’m one
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Job description

Research the distribution, circulation, and physical properties of underground and surface waters; and study the form and intensity of precipitation and its rate of infiltration into the soil, movement through the earth, and return to the ocean and atmosphere.

O*NET-SOC code: 19-2043.00