---
title: "Agent and Business Manager of Artists, Performers, and Athletes"
description: "Represent and promote artists, performers, and athletes in dealings with current or prospective employers. May handle contract negotiation and other…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/agent-and-business-manager-of-artists-performers-and-athletes"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Agent and Business Manager of Artists, Performers, and Athletes

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1011.00

Represent and promote artists, performers, and athletes in dealings with current or prospective employers. May handle contract negotiation and other business matters for clients.

Also advertised as: Agent; Athlete Marketing Agent; Booker; Booking Agent; Entertainment Specialist; Literary Agent; Print Agent; Talent Agent.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $82,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $39.85/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,010 to $284,570, with the middle half between $63,670 and $146,430
- **Total US employment:** 12,620
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +9.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 25/100 — 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 12,620 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,010 |
| 25th | $63,670 |
| 50th (median) | $82,890 |
| 75th | $146,430 |
| 90th | $284,570 |
| Mean (average) | $141,580 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| FL | $98,200 | $94,958 | 870 |
| CA | $98,110 | $88,611 | 4,860 |
| CO | $95,530 | $92,701 | 80 |
| TX | $82,920 | $85,434 | 320 |
| MI | $82,440 | $85,681 | Not published by BLS |
| NH | $81,690 | $78,424 | 40 |
| CT | $81,470 | $78,631 | 170 |
| NJ | $81,190 | $74,620 | 170 |
| NY | $79,620 | $73,776 | 2,660 |
| AR | $78,560 | $90,364 | 30 |
| OH | $76,790 | $82,771 | 100 |
| TN | $75,390 | $82,062 | 730 |
| WI | $74,990 | $79,696 | 40 |
| WA | $74,620 | $69,730 | 120 |
| VA | $73,400 | $72,599 | 110 |

2 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 17 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/agent-and-business-manager-of-artists-performers-and-athletes/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/agent-and-business-manager-of-artists-performers-and-athletes.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 26,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 29,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,600 jobs, or +9.7%. Much faster than average: 9.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## 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:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 41.3% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 38.0% |
| Master's Degree | 16.8% |
| Some College Courses | 2.6% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 1.3% |

## What the work involves

- Keep informed of industry trends and deals.
- Send samples of clients' work and other promotional material to potential employers to obtain auditions, sponsorships, or endorsement deals.
- Conduct auditions or interviews to evaluate potential clients.
- Collect fees, commissions, or other payments, according to contract terms.
- Negotiate with managers, promoters, union officials, and other persons regarding clients' contractual rights and obligations.
- Confer with clients to develop strategies for their careers, and to explain actions taken on their behalf.
- Develop contacts with individuals and organizations, and apply effective strategies and techniques to ensure their clients' success.
- Arrange meetings concerning issues involving their clients.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.6 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.

- Persuasion — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fine Arts — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 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 Enterprising (E), Social (S), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.48 |
| S — Social | 4.14 |
| C — Conventional | 3.73 |
| A — Artistic | 3.55 |
| I — Investigative | 1.76 |
| R — Realistic | 1.00 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 79.3 |
| ESFJ | 74.1 |
| ESFP | 68.1 |
| ENTJ | 66.1 |
| ENFP | 65.3 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Talent Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/talent-director) — median $90,360
- [Advertising Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-sales-agent) — median $64,820
- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Advertising and Promotions Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-and-promotions-manager) — median $133,660
- [Writer and Author](https://nuecareer.com/careers/writer-and-author) — median $76,910
- [Marketing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marketing-manager) — median $166,790
- [Meeting, Convention, and Event Planner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/meeting-convention-and-event-planner) — median $61,160
- [Market Research Analyst and Marketing Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/market-research-analyst-and-marketing-specialist) — median $78,760
- [Sales Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-manager) — median $148,270
- [Public Relations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-manager) — median $146,910

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 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, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **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 31.0 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

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