“More of the same” is the gist of the annual AAPG salary survey, which is to say, with a couple of notable exceptions, there have been few changes in salaries since last year’s survey, owing to the ongoing downturn in the industry.
But, there might be signs – however faint – that the job market is on the verge of some important, long-term changes.
“The 2015 salary survey shows very little change in salaries,” said Mike Ayling of MLA Resources in Tulsa, who has conducted the annual salary survey for AAPG since 1981.
He pointed out that geoscientists with 3-19 years’ experience saw a small drop in salaries, which might be a reflection of an adjustment from last year, when they saw little change.
However, Ayling cautioned to take those numbers with a grain of salt.
“I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in them, because they’re not based on enough data to be highly significant. It probably only represents a small drop,” he said.
Ayling explained that the amount of data available for the survey is a function of how much hiring is going on, and 2015 didn’t see much hiring, particularly among younger geoscientists.
“There’s been so much turmoil. People that have jobs have not been looking for jobs; people that have lost their jobs, I think, have retired instead of looking for new jobs,” he said.
Experience Needed
Consequently, like a great many other industry watchers (see this month’s President’s Column), he sees a major skills gap resulting from current conditions.
“For a long time, there’s been a demographic gap because of the downturn in the ‘70s, but now there’s also an experience gap, because a lot of the younger people have been put to work, largely doing things like geosteering and so forth, as opposed to being trained as prospectors,” he explained. “So it seems, for every prospector you lay off with 30 years’ experience, you don’t have a five or ten-year guy with some experience to step into those shoes when the industry picks back up.”
That explains the other notable difference in this year’s survey: 20-24 year geologists saw an average salary increase of $30,000.
“It’s been obvious for a number of years that people who know what they’re doing and are already well trained are highly prized. You can see that in the very high salaries for the experienced people,” said Ayling.
While that’s good news for geologists within that 20-24 year range, it might not bode well for the industry at large, depending on how and if the industry picks back up.
“Will we just go back to large projects – drilling horizontal wells with geosteering, and not worry about working geology? The guys that I’ve talked to have said there have been a lot of mistakes made by doing that, by not working the geology on some of these horizontal plays well enough to understand what’s going on in the play, and where to drill and where not to drill,” he said.
“The question really becomes, ‘What kind of experience are the people with less than 10 years experience gaining, and how valuable will they be in the next 10 years?’
In part it depends on which way the industry goes. If the industry goes back to doing a lot of horizontal drilling in large plays, then those guys are going to be seen as valuable, because they know how to geosteer wells,” Ayling continued. “If the industry says, ‘No, we need to really work a lot of geology to find highly economic, smaller plays, then those guys really haven’t had the opportunity to train the way guys with 20-30 years’ experience have trained.”
“It seems to me that, regardless of what it does, the ability to do exploration geology has probably been harmed by the downturn,” he added.
2015 Geological Salary Survey
| YEARS EXPER |
HIGH |
AVERAGE |
LOW |
| 0-2 |
$ 117,300 |
$ 103,900 |
$ 87,000 |
| 3-5 |
140,000 |
110,900 |
91,900 |
| 6-9 |
160,000 |
141,500 |
118,000 |
| 10-14 |
207,000 |
164,600 |
132,000 |
| 15-19 |
235,000 |
176,600 |
130,000 |
| 20-24 |
350,000 |
264,700 |
206,000 |
| 25+ |
425,000 |
230,600 |
180,000 |
Average Salary By Degree
| YEARS EXPER |
B.S. |
M.S. |
Ph.D. |
| 0-2 |
$ 92,000 |
$ 104,400 |
$ 117,300 |
| 3-5 |
89,000 |
109,100 |
140,000 |
| 6-9 |
n/a |
143,000 |
155,300 |
| 10-14 |
160,000 |
150,000 |
178,900 |
| 15-19 |
n/a |
200,300 |
155,000 |
| 20-24 |
198,900 |
250,200 |
238,000 |
| 25+ |
209,000 |
221,600 |
248,000 |
Historical Averages Salary
| YEARS EXPER |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
| 0-2 |
$82,800 |
$83,600 |
$87,600 |
$93,000 |
$98,700 |
$100,500 |
$103,400 |
$102,900 |
| 3-5 |
107,800 |
108,000 |
105,600 |
102,300 |
109,400 |
101,000 |
114,500 |
114,900 |
| 6- 9 |
121,100 |
118,400 |
121,700 |
127,800 |
137,300 |
127,800 |
145,400 |
148,300 |
| 10-14 |
119,800 |
121,900 |
123,500 |
139,100 |
153,400 |
147,000 |
147,500 |
165,600 |
| 15-19 |
151,600 |
139,400 |
150,800 |
151,000 |
193,600 |
190,300 |
179,200 |
189,000 |
| 20-24 |
167,400 |
176,800 |
180,300 |
191,000 |
199,200 |
211,600 |
219,500 |
234,300 |
| 25+ |
162,800 |
171,700 |
186,800 |
206,300 |
199,600 |
212,000 |
252,600 |
229,900 |