Designing parks, gardens, golf courses, and restored ecosystems, plus the crews who build and care for them.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Principal Landscape Architect: Leads a landscape architecture studio and signs off on parks, campuses, and waterfronts. Typical pay $130k.
Golf Course Architect: Designs golf courses: every hole, bunker, green, and drainage line. Typical pay $115k.
Parks & Recreation Director: Runs a city or county park system: parks, trails, pools, and the people who maintain them. Typical pay $110k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Landscape Architect: Designs outdoor spaces such as parks, campuses, plazas, and green streets that also manage stormwater. Typical pay $80k.
Golf Course Superintendent: Keeps a golf course in perfect shape by managing turf science, water, and a grounds crew. Typical pay $85k.
Consulting Arborist: Diagnoses tree health, assesses whether trees are dangerous, and protects them during construction. Typical pay $70k.
Ecological Restoration Designer: Designs projects that bring damaged streams, wetlands, and prairies back to life. Typical pay $72k.
Green Roof & Living Wall Designer: Designs gardens on rooftops and plant-covered walls that cool buildings and soak up rain. Typical pay $72k.
Zoo & Aquarium Habitat Designer: Designs animal habitats at zoos and aquariums that feel wild and keep animals and visitors safe. Typical pay $80k.
Landscape Designer: Designs home gardens, patios, and yards for homeowners and landscaping companies. Typical pay $58k.
Landscaping Crew Foreman: Leads a landscaping crew building and maintaining yards, parks, and campuses. Typical pay $56k.
Irrigation Designer: Designs the underground sprinkler and drip systems for parks, golf courses, campuses and homes to use as little water as possible. Typical pay $66k.
Landscape Lighting Designer: Designs and installs the low-voltage lights that make gardens, trees, paths and house fronts glow safely at night. Typical pay $58k.
Starter: fastest way in
Landscape CAD Technician: Turns landscape architects' sketches into precise construction drawings. Typical pay $52k.
Hardscape Installer: Builds patios, walkways, retaining walls, and outdoor kitchens from stone and pavers. Typical pay $45k.
Irrigation Technician: Installs and repairs sprinkler and drip systems for homes, parks, and farms. Typical pay $46k.
Playground Safety Inspector: Inspects playgrounds at parks and schools to make sure equipment, surfacing and spacing meet safety standards. Typical pay $50k.
Japanese Garden Specialist: Cares for and designs Japanese-style gardens, shaping pines by hand, raking gravel and placing stones with careful, centuries-old methods. Typical pay $50k.
Green Infrastructure Technician: Takes care of rain gardens, bioswales and green roofs that cities build to soak up stormwater and keep sewers from overflowing. Typical pay $45k.
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.