Physical Sciences

What the occupations pay

Median annual wage across the occupations this field of study leads to, from BLS OEWS (national, cross-industry, May 2024). The middle range is the 25th–75th percentile of those occupation medians — it describes the field, not any one job or graduate.

AI exposure of this field of study

Two published studies estimate how exposed each occupation is to today's AI. The OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" study rates the share of an occupation's tasks a large language model (with tools) could speed up by half or more; averaged across the occupations this field of study leads to it is 44% — 58th percentile of all fields of study. The independent Felten/Raj/Seamans AI Occupational Exposure index averages 0.98 here.

Computed across the 27 of 28 occupations this field leads to that carry a published exposure score.

The most-exposed fields of study lead to knowledge, language and analytical work; the least-exposed lead to physical trades and hands-on production. Exposure measures where AI could assist tasks, not a prediction that these jobs will be automated; high exposure most often means augmentation. Bands are comparable across the cluster, education, job-zone and field-of-study tiers (same two studies, same percentile method).

Where this field of study leads

The largest occupations connected to this field by the CIP–SOC crosswalk, by employment. Wage and employment describe the occupation, not an individual.

Programs in this field

A sample of the detailed CIP programs within this family. The full family contains 45 programs.

• 40.0809 Acoustics
• 40.0502 Analytical Chemistry
• 40.0201 Astronomy
• 40.0299 Astronomy and Astrophysics, Other
• 40.0202 Astrophysics
• 40.0402 Atmospheric Chemistry and Climatology
• 40.0403 Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics
• 40.0401 Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, General
• 40.0499 Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other
• 40.0802 Atomic/Molecular Physics
• 40.0508 Chemical Physics
• 40.0512 Cheminformatics/Chemistry Informatics
• 40.0501 Chemistry, General
• 40.0599 Chemistry, Other
• 40.0808 Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
• 40.0804 Elementary Particle Physics
• 40.0509 Environmental Chemistry
• 40.0510 Forensic Chemistry
• 40.0602 Geochemistry
• 40.0606 Geochemistry and Petrology
• 40.0699 Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences, Other
• 40.0601 Geology/Earth Science, General
• 40.0603 Geophysics and Seismology
• 40.0605 Hydrology and Water Resources Science
• 40.0503 Inorganic Chemistry
• 40.1002 Materials Chemistry
• 40.1001 Materials Science
• 40.1099 Materials Sciences, Other
• 40.0404 Meteorology
• 40.0806 Nuclear Physics

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• CIP-2020 2020 U.S. National Center for Education Statistics
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic
• AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans academic

Data compiled June 3, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-physical-sciences,
  title  = {Physical Sciences},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/programs/physical-sciences}
}