Collecting, protecting, restoring, and displaying the treasures of art, history, and science—and helping the public fall in love with them.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Museum Director: Leads an entire museum—its vision, staff, money, and community role. Typical pay $130k.
Chief Curator: Leads a major museum's team of curators and shapes its collection for decades. Typical pay $140k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Museum Curator: Decides what a museum collects and displays, and tells the stories behind the objects. Typical pay $61k.
Conservator: Repairs and preserves paintings, sculptures, textiles, and artifacts using science and art skills. Typical pay $60k.
Museum Conservation Scientist: Uses chemistry and physics to analyze artworks—what they're made of, how they're aging, and whether they're fakes. Typical pay $95k.
Museum Registrar: Tracks every object a museum owns or borrows—where it is, its condition, insurance, and shipping. Typical pay $60k.
Museum Exhibit Designer: Designs the layout, lighting, and graphics of museum exhibitions. Typical pay $65k.
Provenance Researcher: Traces the ownership history of artworks—including art looted during wars. Typical pay $72k.
Art & Antiques Appraiser: Determines what art, antiques, and collectibles are worth for insurance, estates, and sales. Typical pay $65k.
Auction House Specialist: Finds, evaluates, and sells rare objects—art, jewelry, comics, wine, dinosaur fossils—at auction houses. Typical pay $80k.
Museum Development Director: Raises the money museums need from donors, foundations, and members. Typical pay $100k.
NAGPRA Repatriation Coordinator: Works with Native American tribes to return ancestral remains and sacred objects held by museums and universities. Typical pay $63k.
Museum Mount Maker: Builds custom metal stands that hold priceless objects safely and almost invisibly in museum displays. Typical pay $58k.
Museum Evaluator: Studies how visitors experience exhibits and whether they learn and enjoy what museums intend. Typical pay $70k.
Museum Photographer: Photographs museum objects and artworks with perfect color and lighting for catalogs and websites. Typical pay $58k.
Architectural Finishes Conservator: Scrapes and studies tiny layers of old paint, plaster and wallpaper to find a historic building's original colors and restore them. Typical pay $70k.
Shipwreck Artifact Conservator: Slowly rescues cannons, ship timbers and coins pulled from shipwrecks, using years-long chemical baths so they don't crumble once they meet air. Typical pay $62k.
Starter: fastest way in
Museum Technician: Handles, moves, and installs museum objects and keeps storage organized. Typical pay $49k.
Art Handler / Preparator: Packs, moves, and installs priceless artwork for museums, galleries, and collectors. Typical pay $45k.
Museum Educator: Teaches school groups and visitors in museums through tours, workshops, and programs. Typical pay $45k.
Gallery Attendant: Protects art and visitors in museum galleries and answers visitor questions. Typical pay $38k.
Museum Visitor Services Associate: Greets visitors, sells tickets and memberships, and helps people plan their museum visit. Typical pay $33k.
Wax Figure Artist: Sculpts, paints and repairs life-size figures of famous people or ancient humans for wax museums and history exhibits, down to each hair. Typical pay $52k.
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.