California / Water Resources / Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory)
Job-title file
Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory)
Lead staff and operations — set priorities, allocate resources, and oversee program delivery.
50 employees hold this title in Water Resources. Median total compensation for the role is $143,091, above the department median of $115,959.
- Employees
- 50
- Total payroll
- $7M
- Role median
- $143,091
- Agency median
- $115,959
- Comparison
- Above
What the records show
Role pay distribution
Pay distribution for this role
How total compensation varies among the 50 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.
Compared with the local labor market
Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory) pay vs. California
Across all employers in California, the median wage for Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health — about 12,490 people — is $106,510. Water Resources pays a median base salary of $113,013 for this role, 6% above that figure — about the 56th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Water Resources sits in the local pay range
The bar is the range of annual wages for Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health across every employer in California, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Water Resources’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health — about 89,250 people — is $82,220. Water Resources’s median base salary is 37% above that national figure, about the 77th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the California range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 155 of 163 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Water Resources is $115,599, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
This role across California
Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory) is held in 25 California departments. In Water Resources, the median of $143,091 ranks #11 of 25.
Highest-paying departments for this role
Median total compensation for the Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory) role in other Californiadepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.
Compare jurisdictions
Senior Environmental Scientist beyond California
This role is reported in 2 jurisdictions. In California, the median of $119,894 ranks #2 of 2. See Senior Environmental Scientist across all of California →
Highest-paying jurisdictions for this role
Median total compensation for comparable Senior Environmental Scientistroles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.
Record list
Employees with this title
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