What can you do with an environmental science degree?
Where environmental science graduates actually work, and how exposed those jobs are to AI. Built from ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS: 14,487 people whose bachelor's degree is in this field, aged 22-64.
Environmental science is a degree with no single destination. About 3 in 100 people with an environmental science bachelor's degree, 3. 4 in 100, work as environmental scientists and specialists, the job that shares the degree's name and the largest single group we score. Elementary and middle school teachers follow at about 2. 6 in 100. Project management specialists, management analysts and lawyers are each about 2 in 100.
Biological scientists, which we map to our wildlife biologist page, secondary school teachers, social and community service managers, customer service representatives, registered nurses, software developers and construction managers are each roughly 1 in 100.
Nearly half of graduates work in roles we do not score. About 5 in 100 are managers in other roles, about 2 in 100 are postsecondary teachers and about 2 in 100 are in "physical scientists, all other", with compliance officers at about 1 in 100. This page covers about 52% of graduates, just above our 50% minimum and below the 60% bar for an overall verdict.
The figures come from Census data on more than 14,000 people with the degree. For a neighbouring degree with similar work, see geology and earth science, and for the engineering route see civil engineering.
How exposed are environmental science jobs to AI?
We give this degree no overall verdict. The job that shares its name, environmental scientists and specialists, rates At risk with a structural exposure of 94 out of 100 and no licensing or physical wall, but it employs only about 3 in 100 graduates. Among graduates in jobs we score, about 47% are in At risk jobs, 31% in AI-resistant jobs and 22% in Safe jobs, so no label reaches the 70% our rule needs.
Coverage is 52%, under our 60% bar, and the largest groups we do not score are managers in other roles and postsecondary teachers. The degree's exposure figure is 68 out of 100. The studies we reviewed do not single out environmental science graduates as doing worse than other majors. Confidence is insufficient.
These figures cover the 52% of environmental science graduates who work in occupations we score. The other 48% work in roles we do not cover (largest: Other Managers; Postsecondary Teachers; Physical Scientists, all Other). Signal 01 averages each job's own structural exposure, weighted by how many graduates work there; it describes tasks, not whether jobs will disappear.
Where environmental science graduates actually work
These 10 occupations account for 24% of environmental science graduates. The rest are spread across many smaller occupations, each under 1%. Graduates often work outside the field.
What the research says about AI and environmental science graduates
The Census Bureau working paper (September 2026) lists environmental science in its appendix table, with about 14,500 graduates from 2018 to 2022, in the fifth of ten exposure groups and with a below-average exposure score (-0. 30 standard deviations). Its 2024 estimates for the field, measured against 2022 and against the average major, are -0. 004 for the employment rate and +0. 005 for earnings, both within about half a point of zero.
The paper says its most exposed tenth, mostly computer science and adjacent degrees, has the most negative employment outcomes.
The Dallas Fed paper does not mention environmental science. Employ America names chemistry, not environmental science, among the majors with higher unemployment than before the pandemic, and the NBER paper reports no results by major. The studies disagree about how much of any graduate weakness is due to AI, and none we read shows environmental science graduates doing worse than other majors.
Read the full evidence review: what the studies say about AI and graduate jobs →
Degrees whose graduates work in similar jobs
How this page was built
Graduate shares come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS), field of degree "Environmental Science" (code 1301), weighted to the population. Each occupation we cover is scored with the numbers already published on its own page on this site, then averaged by graduate share. Occupations without a page are shown but never scored. Graduates aged 22-64 are included, so the mix reflects the whole working-age group, not only recent graduates. The survey records the most recent occupation of people who were not working when surveyed (unemployed or out of the labor force), and they are counted in it: across the degrees on this site that is about 9 in 100 graduates, between 6 and 13 in 100 depending on the degree, so "work as" on this page means "work or last worked as". Sources: www2.census.gov, www2.census.gov, www.dallasfed.org, www.nber.org, employamerica.org, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov. This page is general information, not career or educational advice.