Whether you are a potential student pursuing a lucrative profession or you are currently a practicing licensed Landscape Architect and wish to know how your salary stacks up within the industry, many individuals want more information on their industry’s pay scale.
In this article, I breakdown how much landscape designers and landscape architects within the profession, specifically looking at the annual salary over the past few years. The data and information provided are specific to the United States. For international landscape designers, you will need to check your own regional or national employment statistics – sorry.
Difference Between Landscape Designer and Landscape Architect
For the purposes of this article, I am identifying all Landscape Architects as those who are officially licensed by their state to practice. Along with this specification, the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines Landscape Architects as those who “design attractive and functional public parks, gardens, playgrounds, residential areas, college campuses, and public spaces. They also plan the locations of buildings, roads, walkways, flowers, shrubs, and trees within these environments.”
Landscape Designers are a different category, both professionally and academically. I have already written extensively in a previous article on How to Become A Professional Landscape Designer. In the linked article, you will note that there is no nationally-recognized license for Landscape Designers; therefore, it is more difficult to capture relevant and targeted data.
For Landscape Designer salaries, I extrapolated data from a variety of different sources to provide the salary information. References to these sources are listed below.
Salary Ranges for Landscape Architect
The mean annual wage for Landscape Architects nationally is $73,970, with those making $90,000 or above in the top 25% of wage earners and those making $54,000 or below in the bottom 25% of wage earners.
The geographic distribution throughout the country does indicate that fluctuations may occur. For more specialized data. The top paying states are:
| STATE | ANNUAL MEAN WAGE |
| California | $90, 940 |
| Virginia | $88, 090 |
| Connecticut | $85, 090 |
| Massachusetts | $84, 700 |
| Wyoming | $81, 120 |
Of these top states, Connecticut has the highest employment per thousand jobs with 0.26, with Wyoming being lowest at 0.13. In case you were wondering, although Colorado did not make the top 5 for annual mean wages, it has the highest level of employment per thousand jobs at 0.34).
If we look a bit more in-depth at the highest annual mean wages within metropolitan areas, California has 5 of the top 10 metro areas, with San Diego-Carlsbad topping the list at $114,540.
The others include:
| METRO AREA | ANNUAL MEAN WAGE |
| Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT | $89,910 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA-NH | $88,890 |
| Ithaca, NY | $85,730 |
| Asheville, NC | $85,270 |
| Burlington-South Burlington, VT | $84,820 |
Salary Ranges for A Landscape Designer
The mean annual wage for Landscape Designers nationally is $51,280, with those making $61,000 or above in the top 25% of wage earners and those making $32,000 or below in the bottom 25% of wage earners.
The geographic distribution throughout the country does indicate that fluctuations may occur. For more specialized data. The top paying states are:
| STATE | ANNUAL MEAN WAGE |
| Alaska | $82,580 |
| North Dakota | $64,940 |
| Rhode Island | $62,420 |
| Connecticut | $60,270 |
| California | $59,640 |
Of these top states, Rhode Island has the highest employment per thousand jobs with .99, with Texas being lowest at 0.51. New Hampshire did not make the top 5 for annual mean wages (averaging $56,000) but has the highest level of employment per thousand jobs at 1.23).
You will notice the difference in employment per thousand jobs when compared with Landscape Architects. This is primarily due to the licensing requirements of the Landscape Architectural profession, which sets a higher bar of entry than most landscape fields.
If we look a bit more in-depth at the highest annual mean wages within metropolitan areas, Anchorage, AK come in first with annual mean wage of $86,020. California has 2 of the top 10 spots, with Visalia- Porterville coming in at an annual mean of $71,380.
The others include:
| METRO AREA | ANNUAL MEAN WAGE |
| Bremerton-Silverdale, WA | $70,850 |
| Fargo, ND | $70,420 |
| Spokane, WA | $67,850 |
| Bismark, ND | $67,460 |
| Trenton, NJ | $67,110 |
| Norwhich-New London, CT | $65,570 |
| San Jose – Sunnivale – Santa Clara, CA | $65,160 |
| Port St. Lucie, FL | $64,470 |
So with these numbers in mind, you can see an estimated $20,000 difference between the annual mean wage of a licensed Landscape Architect and a Landscape Designer. This difference (roughly an added 40% of salary to a Landscape Designer) may seem large; however, the licensure expenses (education, exam preparation, registration, and continuing education requirements) can easily account for the variance.
Often when I advise students, I say the following which I believe rings true here: If you want to make more money in the long term, becoming a licensed Landscape Architect is definitely the best choice; however, if money is the only reason you are making the decision, you will most likely never reach that goal – it takes a lot of hard work to obtain licensure, and those that attain it have a genuine love for the profession.
For more information about the Landscape Architecture or Landscape Design Profession, these other articles may also be of interest to you:
Which Landscape Architecture Degree Should I Get?
Three Unique Areas of The Landscape Architecture
How To Get Noticed By Employers
________________________
Important Legal Disclaimer: This site is owned and operated by Draftscapes. We are a participant in affiliate marketing programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to participant vendors. Affiliations include Utrecht Art Supply and Amazon Associates. Draftscapes is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies. Recommendations for products or services on this site are not influenced through the affiliation.
References for data:
Occupational Employment & Wages Report, May 2018. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2019. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
American Society of Landscape Architects
Association of Professional Landscape Designers
National Association of Landscape Professionals
Pingback: How Much Do Landscape Designer’s Make? | Men At Work MASS.