Librarian salary
What a librarian actually earns, from 237 live job postings blended with the official US OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage anchor. Pick a market for its median and range, then read the seniority split, the trend, and the country comparison below. Updated 2026-09-06.
Switch the market above to see librarian pay in the 2 countries our sources cover, each with its own cost of living. The trend, seniority, and state detail below are United States data, where the official record runs deepest.
What the number means
A librarian earns a blended US median near 69,096 dollars, with the typical middle running from 56,889 dollars to 87,237 dollars. The official OEWS median is 64,320 dollars, under the posted figure, because the advertised roles skew senior or well-funded. The official trend has moved up about 8 percent since 2019. Demand is rated high, and 0% of postings are fully remote.
Open librarian roles
Live openings tagged to this occupation, from company career pages and remote boards. Apply at the source.
Audience Engagement/Southeast Asian Reference Librarian at Library of CongressWashington, District of Columbia$71k–$92k2d agoApply
Data Manager and Cataloger - Exploitation Specialist at LeidosWood River, IL$73k–$133k4d agoApply- Supervisory Librarian (CMD Assistant Chief) at Library of CongressWashington, District of Columbia$169k–$197k5d agoApply
- Bibliothekar/in at Kantonale Verwaltung ZürichUster, Zürich, Switzerland5d agoApply
Librarian (Law) at Immigration and Customs EnforcementMultiple Locations$91k–$118k1w agoApply- Law Librarian at Immigration and Customs EnforcementMultiple Locations$76k–$99k1w agoApply
By country
- United States$56,889$69,096$87,237
- United Kingdom$39,784$46,116$49,106
Switzerland · official wage bands
median CHF 9'122/month
Swiss postings do not state pay, so these are not posted salaries: they are the federal wage survey (Lohnstrukturerhebung 2024) for the ISCO group 26 Juristen, Sozialwissenschaftler und Kulturberufe: standardized gross monthly, full-time, 13th salary included pro rata. The band covers the whole occupation group, which is coarser than this occupation alone.
Annual ≈ CHF 109'464 at the median. Source: Bundesamt für Statistik, LSE 2024.
Top-paying US states
OEWS median by state, highest first.
- Washington$94,400
- California$86,590
- Maryland$81,690
- New York$77,080
- Virginia$74,320
- Colorado$64,980
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Quick answers
How much does a librarian make?
The blended US median is about 69,096 dollars, with a typical range from 56,889 dollars to 87,237 dollars, against an official OEWS median of 64,320 dollars.
Is librarian a good career in 2026?
Demand for the role is rated high in our July 2026 corpus, with 0% of postings fully remote. The pay is shown above by seniority and by country.
Method: bands are the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of live US postings with stated pay, shrunk toward the official OEWS anchor by sample size (the “blended” figure). Trend is the OEWS annual median for SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) code 25-4022. Live corpus 237 observations, 2026-09-06. Definitions in the glossary.