---
title: "Animal Control Worker"
description: "Handle animals for the purpose of investigations of mistreatment, or control of abandoned, dangerous, or unattended animals."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-control-worker"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Animal Control Worker

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-9011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-9011.00

Handle animals for the purpose of investigations of mistreatment, or control of abandoned, dangerous, or unattended animals.

Also advertised as: ACO (Animal Control Officer); Animal Attendant; Animal Cruelty Investigator; Animal Enforcement Officer; Animal Instructor Officer; Animal Ordinance Enforcement Officer; Animal Park Code Enforcement Officer; Animal Safety Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $45,660 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.95/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $33,090 to $68,070, with the middle half between $37,750 and $57,060
- **Total US employment:** 12,070
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 61/100 — 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 12,070 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $33,090 |
| 25th | $37,750 |
| 50th (median) | $45,660 |
| 75th | $57,060 |
| 90th | $68,070 |
| Mean (average) | $48,440 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $66,440 | $62,086 | 180 |
| OR | $66,130 | $63,980 | 40 |
| AK | $63,340 | $61,880 | 30 |
| CA | $62,630 | $56,566 | 1,210 |
| MA | $60,930 | $57,613 | 280 |
| NV | $58,810 | $58,822 | 100 |
| CO | $58,470 | $56,738 | 170 |
| CT | $57,130 | $55,139 | 220 |
| RI | $55,060 | $53,833 | 70 |
| IA | $54,190 | $61,747 | 80 |
| WY | $53,870 | $58,118 | 40 |
| MD | $53,330 | $50,810 | 140 |
| NJ | $52,050 | $47,838 | 260 |
| PA | $52,000 | $53,294 | Not published by BLS |
| MT | $50,530 | $53,389 | 50 |

29 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 44 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-control-worker/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/animal-control-worker.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 13,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 14,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 600 jobs, or +4.0%. About as fast as average: 4.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,500 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 65.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 19.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 11.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 3.9% |

## What the work involves

- Write reports of activities, and maintain files of impoundments and dispositions of animals.
- Investigate reports of animal attacks or animal cruelty, interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, and writing reports.
- Educate the public about animal welfare, and animal control laws and regulations.
- Answer inquiries from the public concerning animal control operations.
- Prepare for prosecutions related to animal treatment, and give evidence in court.
- Issue warnings or citations in connection with animal-related offenses, or contact police to report violations and request arrests.
- Contact animal owners to inform them that their pets are at animal holding facilities.
- Remove captured animals from animal-control service vehicles and place animals in shelter cages or other enclosures.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.3 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 Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.93 |
| C — Conventional | 3.89 |
| I — Investigative | 3.59 |
| S — Social | 2.63 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.17 |
| A — Artistic | 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 89.8 |
| ISTP | 79.2 |
| ISFJ | 74.0 |
| ESTJ | 72.7 |
| INTJ | 65.5 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-caretaker) — median $35,360
- [Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-assistant-and-laboratory-animal-caretaker) — median $38,150
- [Fish and Game Warden](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fish-and-game-warden) — median $74,060
- [Animal Trainer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-trainer) — median $39,990
- [Police Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/police-officer) — median $76,210
- [Veterinary Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-technician) — median $47,380
- [Animal Breeder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-breeder) — median $51,130
- [Agricultural Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agricultural-inspector) — median $49,940
- [Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal) — median $36,670
- [Security Guard](https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-guard) — median $38,020

## 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

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/animal-control-worker