Also called: Chemical Indexer, Cheminformatics Specialist
Organizes the world's chemistry knowledge, turning papers and patents into searchable databases of molecules and reactions.
You read new research papers and patents, draw the structures of the molecules in them, and tag each reaction so scientists can find it later. Some days you write code to clean up chemical data for AI models.
Major employers include Chemical Abstracts Service (Ohio) and chemistry software firms.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's or master's in chemistry; coding skills are a plus.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Chemistry, Cheminformatics, Library & Information Science.
Growing about average. Shifting toward data science and AI work.
High risk for 10 years. AI now reads papers and patents and draws structures into databases; most curation work disappears.
Classes: AP Chemistry, AP Computer Science, English composition.
Official data: O*NET occupation 19-2031.
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.