Microbiologists

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
6.5/10
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

13% (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.

Critical thinking

Very important
Why this matters
Weigh options using logic and evidence, spot weaknesses in arguments, and choose the best approach when there isn’t a single clear answer.
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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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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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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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Show 3 more strengths

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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Education and training expertise

Quite important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
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What users think

Based on 192 votes

33% 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 13% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

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

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Microbiologists was $87,330 ($42 per hour).

The median annual wage for Microbiologists was 76.4% 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

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Microbiologists' job openings is expected to rise 4.1% 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

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 19,760 people employed as 'Microbiologists' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 7 thousand people are employed as 'Microbiologists'.

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What people are saying (6)

Leave a comment
Sakra (No chance)
24 May 2025 13:29
human skills and interpretation is required
ab (Low)
01 Mar 2025 15:16
Microbiology is a profession that's almost impossible to automate with our current tech. Just the act of taking samples, studying them, using critical thinking and the like have not been and are unlikely to be mastered by AI in the next few decades.
Tomasz Szabat (Low)
04 Sep 2019 18:38
Some tasks can be automated easily, others not so much. There is a lot of repetitive, procedure followed asignments.
Anonymous (No chance)
22 Jun 2019 03:11
Parts of the process can be automated, but ultimately there's a good amount of critical thinking that requires human intervention. Maybe fewer humans will be employed, as information can be collected by machines, but ultimately data analysis would fall to people.
Bethany (Highly likely)
14 Apr 2019 23:00
It's extremely easy for robots to collect data - sorry!
Anonymous
22 Jun 2019 03:14
Except that data collection is only a fraction of microbiology. Collecting data about illness in a community is one thing. Critically thinking and recognizing the underlying causes and where to look for them is not something machines will be able to do anytime soon. Someone will have to be telling the robots where to collect data from, after all - sorry!
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Job description

Investigate the growth, structure, development, and other characteristics of microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, algae, or fungi. Includes medical microbiologists who study the relationship between organisms and disease or the effects of antibiotics on microorganisms.

O*NET-SOC code: 19-1022.00