Salary for a Forensic Investigator
Forensic Examiner Salary & Pay

Interested in a forensic detective career? Read our forensic examiner job description, learn the average salary for a forensic investigator & education needed

The salary for a forensic examiner is dependent on a variety of factors.

Where you work, for whom you work, and how long you've been doing the job--these questions provide the ingredients that make up the recipe of your success.

As a forensic investigator you can expect to earn an average salary of $50,500 per year. But this by no means is a maximum limit.

The upper echelons of a salary for a forensic detective can be upwards of $70,000 a year. On the other hand, you may not start out at $50,500 per year when beginning your career as a forensic investigator. The low end of the pay scale lands right around $40,000 annually.

Forensic Examiner Salary vs. Other Criminal Justice Jobs

The pay scale in the criminal justice world spans a pretty wide gap--from a relative pittance to a small fortune.

To give you an idea of how the salary for a forensic investigator stacks up to some of the other careers in the criminal investigation community, here's a look at just a few different annual salaries:

Forensic Investigator - $50,500
Evidence Custodian - $86,400 to $144,000
Fingerprint Technician - $30,000 to $47,000
Firearms Examiner - $25,000 to $61,000
Chief Medical Examiner - $150,000 to $245,000

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Sure, the differences in pay checks oftentimes relates directly to the amount of training and experience you need to have to do your job, but the point is that this is a career that has plenty of growing potential. So if you want to be a forensic investigator, or already are one, don't limit yourself to the lower rungs of the ladder. If you're good at what you do, you should be rewarded with promotions and higher pay grades.

Be motivated, be educated, and be ready to succeed.

Career for a Forensic Investigator

There are quite a few steps you must take before becoming a successful forensic investigator, however. For one thing, you need to get educated.

Most forensic investigators have college degrees in the applied sciences or science-related disciplines. If you don't already have one of these, you need to consider the possibility of going back to school.

But this doesn't mean you have to drastically alter your lifestyle! Going back to school can be as easy as spending an hour or two on the computer at home a few nights a week.

Online colleges and universities offer you the same prestigious degrees as other, campus-based institutions, but they afford you certain advantages that can't be found anywhere else: the chance to work exclusively from home, setting your own schedule, maintaining your nine-to-five job, and remaining in your family's day-to-day lives.

If this sounds like something you're interested in, check out these great web-based colleges and universities to see what they have to offer in the way of earning a bachelor's degree and eventually bringing in the salary for a forensic investigator: