---
title: "Accountant"
description: "Examine, analyze, and interpret accounting records to prepare financial statements, give advice, or audit and evaluate statements prepared by others.…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/accountant"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Accountant

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2011.00

Examine, analyze, and interpret accounting records to prepare financial statements, give advice, or audit and evaluate statements prepared by others. Install or advise on systems of recording costs or other financial and budgetary data.

Also advertised as: Accountant; Accounting Officer; Audit Partner; Auditor; Certified Public Accountant (CPA); Cost Accountant; Financial Auditor; General Accountant.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $83,680 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $40.23/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $56,020 to $144,090, with the middle half between $67,020 and $109,810
- **Total US employment:** 1,449,500
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.6% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 124,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 15/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,449,500 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $56,020 |
| 25th | $67,020 |
| 50th (median) | $83,680 |
| 75th | $109,810 |
| 90th | $144,090 |
| Mean (average) | $94,750 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $111,530 | $101,482 | 9,810 |
| NY | $102,640 | $95,107 | 109,830 |
| NJ | $100,830 | $92,670 | 42,250 |
| MA | $99,460 | $94,046 | 46,230 |
| CT | $97,550 | $94,151 | 16,770 |
| CA | $97,050 | $87,654 | 175,360 |
| CO | $97,030 | $94,156 | 35,410 |
| WA | $96,550 | $90,223 | 34,740 |
| RI | $95,820 | $93,684 | 6,570 |
| DE | $95,020 | $95,203 | 6,570 |
| VA | $93,290 | $92,271 | 47,100 |
| MD | $89,370 | $85,148 | 26,170 |
| OR | $85,800 | $83,010 | 14,920 |
| NH | $83,470 | $80,132 | 7,000 |
| AK | $83,460 | $81,537 | 2,190 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/accountant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/accountant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,579,800 in the 2024–2034 base year to 1,652,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 72,800 jobs, or +4.6%. Faster than average: 4.6% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 124,200 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
- Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency, effectiveness, and use of accepted accounting procedures to record transactions.
- Supervise auditing of establishments, and determine scope of investigation required.
- Confer with company officials about financial and regulatory matters.
- Examine and evaluate financial and information systems, recommending controls to ensure system reliability and data integrity.
- Inspect cash on hand, notes receivable and payable, negotiable securities, and canceled checks to confirm records are accurate.
- Examine records and interview workers to ensure recording of transactions and compliance with laws and regulations.
- Examine inventory to verify journal and ledger entries.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Economics and Accounting — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 7.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.87 |
| I — Investigative | 3.57 |
| S — Social | 2.13 |
| R — Realistic | 1.14 |
| A — Artistic | 1.08 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 78.0 |
| ISTJ | 75.6 |
| ISFJ | 70.8 |
| ESFJ | 68.2 |
| ENTJ | 63.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bookkeeping-accounting-and-auditing-clerk) — median $50,670
- [Financial Examiner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-examiner) — median $94,160
- [Treasurer and Controller](https://nuecareer.com/careers/treasurer-and-controller) — median $166,570
- [Tax Preparer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-preparer) — median $54,920
- [Financial Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-manager) — median $166,570
- [Budget Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/budget-analyst) — median $91,640
- [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510
- [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070
- [Tax Examiner and Collector, and Revenue Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent) — median $62,370
- [Financial and Investment Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-and-investment-analyst) — median $102,740

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/accountant