Official statistics
Pay and employment statistics
What the occupations closest to geospatial work earn in the United Kingdom and the United States, from the national statistics offices.
Yearly pay
United Kingdom, full-time employees
| Occupation | Median a year | Middle half earn |
|---|---|---|
| Environment professionals | £43,362 | £33,231 to £51,849 |
| Chartered surveyors | £46,184 | £37,504 to £57,670 |
| Civil engineers | £51,366 | £39,802 to £65,000 |
ONS has no occupation group for GIS, so these are the closest official groups.
Source: Office for National Statistics, ASHE 2025 provisional, Table 14.7a, full-time employee jobs. Open Government Licence v3.0. Checked 19 September 2026.
United States, national
| Occupation | Median a year |
|---|---|
| Cartographers and Photogrammetrists | US$81,390 |
| Surveyors | US$75,440 |
| Surveying and Mapping Technicians | US$54,240 |
| Geographers | US$102,040 |
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, median annual wage. Checked 18 September 2026.
How these occupations were chosen
Neither country has an official occupation called GIS analyst. In the UK, ONS lists GIS analyst as a related job title under Social and humanities scientists, a group that covers work far wider than mapping, so it is not shown. The UK rows are the nearest official groups instead:
- Environment professionals SOC 2020 2152
- Proxy for environmental consulting and flood-risk work: SOC 2020 related job titles include Environmental consultant and Flood risk manager, and its tasks include collecting, analysing and interpreting environmental data and environmental impact assessment. The unit group is much broader than GIS.
- Chartered surveyors SOC 2020 2454
- Closest UK unit group to land and measurement surveying: SOC 2020 tasks include surveying land surfaces to establish property boundaries and to aid construction or cartographic work, and related job titles include Land surveyor, Hydrographic surveyor and Topographer. It also covers building surveyors.
- Civil engineers SOC 2020 2121
- Proxy for infrastructure engineering: SOC 2020 tasks include designing roads, railways, bridges and hydraulic systems and planning the layout of tunnels. The unit group is much broader than GIS, and its pay is not GIS pay.
The US rows are the four occupations whose official titles are about mapping, surveying or geography. They are not a full count of geospatial jobs: much GIS work sits inside broader occupations.
Reading these figures
- These are employee earnings from official surveys, not advertised salaries or total pay, and the self-employed are not included.
- Differences between occupations do not measure what changing career would pay you.
- The UK figures are provisional until ONS publishes its revised 2025 figures, which it expects in October or November 2026.
- Each figure is shown as published: no currency conversion, inflation adjustment or averaging.
Original sources
- ONS: Earnings and hours worked, occupation by four-digit SOC: ASHE Table 14(opens in a new tab)
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Cartographers and Photogrammetrists(opens in a new tab)
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Surveyors(opens in a new tab)
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Surveying and Mapping Technicians(opens in a new tab)
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Geographers(opens in a new tab)