Also called: Controlled Environment Agriculture Specialist, Indoor Farm Grower
Grows lettuce, herbs, and berries indoors under LED lights in stacked racks, with no soil.
You monitor dashboards showing nutrient levels and humidity, adjust recipes of light color and duration, and inspect plants for problems. It feels like part farm, part data center, often inside a warehouse in the middle of a city.
Estimate.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Associate's degree (2-year), about 2 years after high school. Associate or bachelor's in horticulture or plant science; CEA certificate programs are growing.
Ways in: 2-year college, 4-year college, Certification, On-the-job training. Training cost: Under $15k.
Majors to look at: Horticulture, Controlled Environment Agriculture, Plant Science.
Growing faster than average. Promising but bumpy: several big vertical farm companies have closed.
Medium risk for 10 years. AI runs light, nutrients and climate; growers still diagnose crops and fix systems, but automated farms need fewer.
Classes: Biology, Chemistry, Computer science.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.