Judge a collection's lasting worth
Look at who created the records, what activities or events they cover, and whether the proof survives elsewhere.
Career profile
Archivist
Archivists keep old records usable, from handwritten letters to computer files.
A shelved box of documents isn't finished. Archivists identify its maker, pick what to keep long term, and plan how later readers find its facts.
A day in the life
Arrange and describe the folders
Put the records in order and enter folder dates, topics, and summaries in a database researchers search.
Help a researcher find evidence
Ask what they want to prove or confirm, suggest fitting records, and switch collections if the first fails.
Keep digital files usable
Leave digital files in their original format and make separate access copies if researchers need another way in.
Quick facts
Master’s degree typical
United States
$64,550/year
United States · May 2025
3.4% projected growth
United States · 2025–2035
Quick orientation
Preparation, pay & outlook
Preparation
Master’s degree typicalRelevant graduate study and hands-on archival experience are common preparation.
Pay
$64,550/yearNational median for archivists, equivalent to $31.03 an hour.
Outlook
3.4% projected growthAbout 1,100 openings a year nationally, including openings to replace workers who leave.
Fit, tradeoffs & changing tools
You might like this if…
- You enjoy checking a small detail before accepting an explanation.
- You like making information findable for someone else.
- You can stay patient with careful, repeated work.
Things to weigh
- Describing records can mean long stretches of similar entries.
- You help judge what deserves preservation without knowing every question future researchers will ask.
Where AI may help
Software can turn scanned handwriting or typing into searchable text. This is optical character recognition, or OCR; the National Archives uses it in its catalog.
What people still lead
You still weigh a record’s origins, uniqueness, and likely research value when assessing what belongs in an archive.
What we can’t predict yet
How much transcription checking software can remove remains uncertain: machine text can contain errors, so faster searching does not automatically mean less review.
Pay in context
Earnings
Use the national figures as a comparison point when reading job offers, not as a starting-salary promise.
The midpoint
Archivists had a median annual wage of $64,550, with an hourly equivalent of $31.03.
The national spread
The 10th-percentile wage was $39,970 and the 90th-percentile wage was $110,550 a year. These mark the lower and upper ends of the middle 80% of wages, not beginner and senior salaries.
Openings include replacement
Employment is projected to grow 3.4%, with about 1,100 openings per year on average. That includes replacing people who change occupations or leave the workforce, not just newly created jobs.
Getting started
Combine graduate study with archival experience
- What the route involves
- Complete a master’s degree in a relevant field such as archival studies, library science, or history, and build practical experience through archival internships or volunteering.
- What it can lead to
- This matches the typical educational preparation for archivist positions and gives you experience working with collections.
Meet federal archivist coursework requirements
- What the route involves
- Earn a bachelor’s degree in archival science, or a bachelor’s with a major containing 18 semester hours in archival science, history, political science, or government, plus 12 in the listed fields, American civilization, economics, or public administration.
- What it can lead to
- You meet the basic education requirement for federal Archivist Series 1420 positions. The standard also allows the specified 30 semester hours combined with appropriate experience or additional education.
- What to check
- This is a federal qualification route, not a rule for every archive. Meeting the basic requirement does not satisfy every vacancy’s additional qualifications.
Graduate study is the usual route, but federal archivist jobs also have a defined undergraduate qualification route.
After entry
Career paths
This starts where the entry routes leave off: early work, growing capability, and advancement or specialization.
Get established
Learn your archive’s collections and description practices while organizing records and answering routine requests.
Build digital capability
Learn to preserve files in their original formats and choose access copies that work for researchers and the archive’s resources.
Lead or specialize
Lead collection work and staff, or specialize in a historical subject or archival technology.
Where you can work
Federal archives
In appraisal roles, you work with agency staff on which government records merit permanent preservation. Recommendations move through formal decisions. Government archivists generally work regular business hours.
- Indoors
- Office
University archives
You connect campus offices that create records with students, faculty, and staff who need them later. The collection can mix paper records with files transferred from university departments.
- Indoors
- Office
Try it
See whether the job clicks before you commit to the path.
Choose ten copies of your own school or club records. Write what the collection documents, which items you would preserve and why, and a short guide someone else could use to find them. Notice whether deciding what matters and explaining the context interests you.
Stay safe: Use copies, keep private information out, and do not discard originals.
Sources
- O*NET OnLine. 25-4011.00 — Archivists. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Archivists, Curators, and Museum Workers — archivist-specific passages. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics — Archivists, SOC 25-4011; supplied facts binding. Accessed 2026-09-29.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections Table 1.2, 2025–2035 — Archivists, SOC 25-4011; supplied facts binding. Accessed 2026-09-29.
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Archivist Series 1420 — Individual Occupational Requirements. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- National Archives and Records Administration. Appraisal Policy of the National Archives. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- National Archives and Records Administration. Contribution Type: Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Transcription. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- Yale University Library. Born digital. Accessed 2026-10-10.
- Yale Library. University Archivist Michael Lotstein takes Yale’s history very seriously. Accessed 2026-10-10.