How To Become A Principal Environmental Scientist: What It Is and Career Path

What is a principal environmental scientist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Shannon Farrell Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a principal environmental scientist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $47.38 an hour? That's $98,556 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 3,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a Principal Environmental Scientist?

Shannon Farrell Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Your career path is not likely to be one step after another in the same prescribed direction. In today's unique circumstances, be prepared to be flexible, open-minded, and alert for new and unexpected opportunities. Be ready to take multiple jobs in sequence - it is exceedingly rare these days that one finds their 'forever' long term job right off the bat and right out of undergrad. Try things, test, experiment - identifying what spheres of work you like and what spheres you don't like is all a valuable part of data gathering and adaptively moving forward.

If it is hard to find a job in your ideal field, find jobs that provide the opportunity for developing crossover skills: technical and field skills, research skills, writing skills, communication, or management skills. Leverage opportunities to improve and display your executive function skills - planning, organizing, managing, leadership, mentorship, etc. These can all be valuable efforts, even when you aren't working in your preferred scientific field. Be your advocate - make contacts, network, ask for advice, don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone (it may be uncomfortable, but you will survive!)

ScorePrincipal Environmental ScientistUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $98,556

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.77%

Asian 5.03%

Black or African American 3.09%

Hispanic or Latino 6.19%

Unknown 3.68%

White 81.24%

Gender

female 12.28%

male 87.72%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.1

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.7

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal environmental scientist

Explore principal environmental scientist education requirements

Most common principal environmental scientist degrees

Bachelor's

64.6 %

Master's

27.1 %

Associate

6.3 %

Start to develop specific principal environmental scientist skills

Skills	Percentages
Environmental Services	54.87%
Project Management	8.29%
Environmental Compliance	7.28%
EPA	6.80%
Remote Sensing	6.12%

Complete relevant principal environmental scientist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal environmental scientists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a principal environmental scientist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal environmental scientist resumes.

Research principal environmental scientist duties and responsibilities

Develop and manage company EHS compliance processes in accordance with current and upcoming regulatory mandates.
Perform a variety of regular cleaning activities to effectively and efficiently maintain an acceptable level of cleanliness and improve aesthetic environment.
Perform environmental and geotechnical exploratory boring field logging and reporting.

Prepare your principal environmental scientist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your principal environmental scientist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a principal environmental scientist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable principal environmental scientist resume templates

Build a professional principal environmental scientist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your principal environmental scientist resume.

Apply for principal environmental scientist jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a principal environmental scientist job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do principal environmental scientists rate their job?

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Principal Environmental Scientist reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Feb 2021

Pros

Firstly, the most important is to protect our planet for us and the future generations. Secondly our planet is not going to support the pressure and negative impacts because of the big Increased human population . Finally our planet needs more and more environmental specialists to regulate and control all human activities, especially the ilegal ones.

Cons

I don’t like when big companies they know what’s wrong and what’s right, but still the destroy, like cutting trees in Brazil and the other side big companies even knowing those trees are ilegal, but still they continuing to porches. There for I can’t understand and I don’t like.