Safety Specialist (General)
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
A Safety Specialist works with safety specialists to inspect and test workplace environments and equipment and develop workplace safety programs. May specialize in product and equipment safety, and work to identify and correct safety hazards before they affect a customer or end user.
Job Outlook
There were 414 Safety Specialist (General) job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 10826 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Safety Specialist / Coordinator industry, which includes the Safety Specialist (General) career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:
Salary
Many new Safety Specialist (General) 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 $62,593.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $58,882.
Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Safety Specialist (General) postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $50,130.
Education and Experience
Posted Safety Specialist (General) 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 | 0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 54.86% |
| Master's Degree | 7.94% |
| Doctoral Degree | 1.14% |
| Other | 24.02% |
Posted Safety Specialist (General) 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 | 42.89% |
| 3 to 5 years | 46.42% |
| 6 to 8 years | 6.6% |
| 9+ years | 4.08% |
Skills
Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Safety Specialist (General) 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.
- Communication (45.27%)
- Management (44.47%)
- Investigation (40.53%)
- Operations (32.9%)
- Leadership (21.24%)
- Microsoft Office (18.7%)
- Microsoft Excel (18.59%)
- Writing (16.26%)
- Detail Oriented (15.13%)
- Problem Solving (14.59%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Occupational Safety And Health (29.63%)
- Auditing (32.34%)
- Risk Analysis (12.57%)
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) (43.71%)
- Environment Health And Safety (41.94%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Emergency Response (12.8%)
- Biology (9.51%)
- Continuous Improvement Process (8.44%)
- Public Health (8.8%)
- Ergonomics (4.63%)
- Risk Management (8.96%)
- Environmental Health (14.92%)
- Regulatory Compliance (8.76%)
- Construction (12.81%)
- Safety Culture (8.23%)
- Safety Standards (10.19%)
- Safety Training (24.79%)
- Warehousing (3.5%)
- Occupational Hygiene (13.57%)
- Project Management (9.54%)
- Job Safety Analysis (9.81%)
- Process Safety (2.9%)
- Subcontracting (8.28%)
- Root Cause Analysis (9.42%)
- Workplace Safety (3.84%)
- Safety Audits (12.6%)
Alternative Job Titles
Sometimes employers post jobs with Safety Specialist (General) skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:
- Safety Specialist
- Environmental Health Specialist
- Environmental Health and Safety Technician
- Environmental Health and Safety Specialist
- Field Safety Specialist
- Safety and Environmental Specialist
- Safety and Security Specialist
- Public Safety Officer
- Security Specialist
- Life Safety Specialist
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.
- Safety Manager (General)
- Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Coordinator
- Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Specialist
- Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Manager
Common Employers
Here are the employers that have posted the most Safety Specialist (General) jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.
United States
- GPAC (229)
- Kiewit Corporation (153)
- Johnson Controls (106)
- Entergy (99)
- Commonwealth Of Virginia (92)
- Loram Maintenance Of Way (76)
- Deloitte (73)
- Actalent (66)
- CHS (58)
- Spectraforce Technologies (58)
North Carolina
- Adams Electric Company (9)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (8)
- North Carolina State Of (8)
- PSSI International (7)
- Bmwc Constructors (7)
- Guilford County (6)
- North Carolina State University (6)
- Merck KGaA Darmstadt Germany (5)
- Black & Veatch (4)
- University of North Carolina (4)
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.