Forester

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Forester manages large tracts of tree covered land, or manages trees in an urban setting. Directs tree harvests and plantings, develops plans for regenerating or protecting forest land, educates teachers and students about forest conservation. May inventory and appraise timber for sale by forest owners.

Job Outlook

There were 263 Forester job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 4322 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Forester industry, which includes the Forester career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:

Salary

Many new Forester jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $58,555.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $53,437.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Forester postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $49,266.

Education and Experience

Posted Forester jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education Level	Percentage
Associate's Degree	34.41%
Bachelor's Degree	62.82%
Master's Degree	9.74%
Doctoral Degree	3.24%
Other	11.85%

Posted Forester jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of Experience	Percentage
0 to 2 years	68.75%
3 to 5 years	27.26%
6 to 8 years	2.43%
9+ years	1.56%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Forester positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

Management (64.23%)
Communication (36.26%)
Good Driving Record (31.47%)
Planning (30.52%)
Microsoft Office (30.26%)
Consulting (28.71%)
Operations (27.46%)
Writing (24.94%)
Computer Literacy (23.58%)
Problem Solving (22.7%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

Geographic Information Systems (50.89%)
Urban Forestry (30.39%)
Horticulture (34.87%)
Silviculture (14.93%)
Arboriculture (33.32%)
Forest Mensuration (11.84%)
Timber Harvesting (4.2%)
Forestry (93.22%)
Land Tenure (35%)
Forest Management (27.64%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

Pruning (15.28%)
Biology (20.43%)
Project Management (16.86%)
Herbicides (14.95%)
Easement (7.26%)
Geography (13.25%)
Chainsaws (7.74%)
Bilingual (Spanish/English) (10.26%)
Contract Management (5.53%)
Data Collection (14.8%)
Landscape Maintenance (12.23%)
Geology (12.74%)
Auditing (11.21%)
Environmental Science (23.74%)
Marketing (3.74%)
Public Relations (11.46%)
Agriculture (19.38%)
Natural Resource Management (20.2%)
Environmental Studies (12.15%)
Land Management (9.53%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

Timber Management (6.24%)
Agroforestry (1.99%)
Forest Genetics (3.59%)
Forest Pathology (3.29%)
Dendrology (7.64%)
Forest Entomology (4.18%)
Forest Ecology (7.11%)
Reforestation (8.71%)
Silvics (4.08%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Forester skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

Consulting Utility Forester
Utility Forester
District Forester
Utility Arborist
Urban Forester
Production Supervisor
Urban Forestry Intern
Procurement Forester
Forest Supervisor

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Forester jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

Acrt (333)
Environmental International Consultants (274)
Cn Utility Consulting (256)
Asplundh Tree Experts (238)
Davey Resource Group (212)
The Davey Tree Expert Company (196)
ACRT Services (153)
The Nature Conservancy (79)
United States Forest Service (64)
State of Florida (41)

North Carolina

Environmental International Consultants (46)
Asplundh Tree Experts (35)
State of North Carolina (26)
Acrt (25)
Cn Utility Consulting (23)
ACRT Services (16)
United States Forest Service (12)
Prf Forestry Specialists (7)
Commonwealth Of Virginia (7)
Weyerhaeuser (5)

NC State Programs Relevant to this Career

If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!

All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.

Agriculture, Horticulture, & the Outdoors