Historian in 91: Sima Qian finishes the Shiji

For a university post, effectively yes: the doctorate has been the entry ticket since the German seminar model spread in the nineteenth century. Outside academia the rule softens. Museums, archives and public history often hire at master's level, and some celebrated historians — Barbara Tuchman, who won two Pulitzer Prizes, held no doctorate at all — built careers entirely on published work.

How long does it take to become a historian? Roughly nine to twelve years after secondary school for the academic route: a bachelor's degree, usually a master's, then a doctorate of four to seven years built on original archival research. Add the research languages — most doctoral programs expect reading competence in two or more — and the postdoctoral years most people spend before a permanent post, and the full pipeline rivals medicine in length.

Modestly, relative to the training. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics put median historian pay near $73,000 in 2023; European university historians typically earn the equivalent of $50,000–$110,000 depending on country and rank, with Switzerland at the top. The wide tail matters: adjunct teaching can pay under $30,000 a year, while a bestselling trade historian or endowed chair can earn several times the median.