Colorado › Occupations › SOC 19-0000 · One of the 22 major groups

Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations

Across the 40 of this group's 48 occupations with published Colorado employment, 32,190 Coloradans work in life, physical, and social science occupations (8 more occupations have no published Colorado estimate, so the true total is somewhat higher). Weighted by those published jobs, the group's mean exposure score is 47.6 of 100, and 56.8% of the jobs are in occupations where most or a large minority of tasks overlap with AI capabilities assessed in 2023.

Occupational Health and Safety Specialists; Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health; Biological Technicians — the largest of this group's 48 occupations in Colorado.

Every statewide figure on this page is computed directly on published BLS OEWS Colorado state data — a different basis from the county estimates elsewhere on this site, which model occupation mixes from industry mix. The one county table below is labeled accordingly.

Published CO employment
32,190 across 40 of 48 occupations · OEWS 2025
Employment-weighted mean score
47.6 0–100 scale · published statewide data only
High + substantial share
56.8% of the group's published jobs · score ≥ 45 of 100
CO median wages
$47,020–$134,440 range across the 39 occupations with published medians · annual, 2025

Plate I

Tier mix within the group

How this group's 48 occupations — and its 32,190 published Colorado jobs — split across the four task-overlap tiers (cuts at 60/45/30 on the 0–100 score scale).

Occupations and published Colorado employment by tier. Suppressed occupations count in the occupation column but carry no employment.
Tier Occupations Published CO jobs Share of published jobs
high overlap 10 6,480 20.1%
substantial overlap 19 11,800 36.7%
some overlap 14 10,760 33.4%
little overlap 5 3,150 9.8%

Plate II

The ten largest occupations in this group

Ranked by published Colorado employment (OEWS 2025); occupations without a published Colorado estimate cannot be ranked and are on the full occupation list.
Occupation Tier Score CO jobs CO median wage
Occupational Health and Safety Specialists some overlap 35.7 3,080 $101,400
Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health high overlap 71.0 2,580 $85,990
Biological Technicians little overlap 26.7 1,990 $59,400
Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other substantial overlap 47.3 1,860 $63,760
Chemists some overlap 40.0 1,790 $101,980
Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers substantial overlap 47.8 1,480 $114,410
School Psychologists substantial overlap 58.1 1,380 $124,770
Urban and Regional Planners substantial overlap 58.0 1,300 $101,340
Conservation Scientists substantial overlap 48.0 1,230 $84,820
Chemical Technicians some overlap 39.3 1,180 $63,770

Plate III

Where this work concentrates

The six counties where this group is the largest share of local jobs. These county figures are estimates — modeled from each county's industry mix, not published counts (how county estimates are built) — and a share of a small county's job base can rank above a metro county's much larger absolute employment.

Estimated share of each county's jobs in this group, with the estimated job count.
County Est. share of county jobs Est. group jobs Data quality
Boulder 1.8% 3,540 Full
Cheyenne 1.3% 10 Heavily imputed estimate
Jefferson 1.1% 2,837 Full
Lake 1.1% 32 Heavily imputed estimate
Rio Blanco 1.1% 31 Heavily imputed estimate
Lincoln 1.1% 23 Partially imputed estimate