Out in the field with GPS gear, you pin exactly where things are — surveying features, assets, or boundaries and capturing precise coordinates for maps and systems. Where the real world gets its coordinates.
The work means walking or driving sites, capturing GPS points and attributes, and logging clean data in often imperfect conditions. You're outdoors in most weather, covering ground, then checking your data before it feeds a map or database. Accuracy is everything — a wrong point becomes a trusted error downstream.
What people underestimate is the physical, weather-dependent nature of the work — long days on foot, in heat, cold, or terrain. Equipment can be finicky and signal unreliable, the work is seasonal in places, and a sloppy field day shows up in the data. Settings span surveying, utilities, and environmental work.
It fits someone detail-oriented, self-directed, and at home outdoors. If you want a climate-controlled desk or steady routine, the conditions may not suit. But if you like fieldwork — and being the person whose careful collection the whole dataset depends on — the role tends to satisfy, site by site.
Remember “your permanent record”?
This time it works for you.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Your job belongs to your employer.
Your career belongs to you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Technology roles →Out in the field with GPS gear, you pin exactly where things are — surveying features, assets, or boundaries and capturing precise coordinates for maps and systems. Where the real world gets its coordinates.
Median pay for a GPS Field Data Collector (Global Positioning System Field Data Collector) is about $47K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $33K to $69K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Active Listening, and Writing.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 4.3% through 2034, with roughly 14,340 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Data Operations Director, Field Engineer, and Field Technology Development Agronomist.
It's your career.
Take the wheel.