---
title: "Animal Trainer"
description: "Train animals for riding, harness, security, performance, or obedience, or for assisting persons with disabilities. Accustom animals to human voice and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-trainer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Animal Trainer

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-2011.00

Train animals for riding, harness, security, performance, or obedience, or for assisting persons with disabilities. Accustom animals to human voice and contact, and condition animals to respond to commands. Train animals according to prescribed standards for show or competition. May train animals to carry pack loads or work as part of pack team.

Also advertised as: Agility Instructor; Dog Obedience Instructor; Dog Trainer; Guide Dog Instructor; Guide Dog Mobility Instructor (GDMI); Guide Dog Trainer; Horse Trainer; Racehorse Trainer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $39,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $19.22/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $29,600 to $75,490, with the middle half between $33,740 and $53,580
- **Total US employment:** 18,770
- **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:** +4.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,500 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 18,770 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $29,600 |
| 25th | $33,740 |
| 50th (median) | $39,990 |
| 75th | $53,580 |
| 90th | $75,490 |
| Mean (average) | $47,020 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| VA | $62,960 | $62,273 | 720 |
| AL | $55,700 | $62,709 | 170 |
| OR | $55,520 | $53,715 | 140 |
| CA | $49,060 | $44,310 | 2,270 |
| NY | $48,790 | $45,209 | 970 |
| NJ | $46,690 | $42,912 | 480 |
| WA | $46,420 | $43,378 | 360 |
| IL | $45,830 | $45,849 | 680 |
| CT | $45,800 | $44,204 | 290 |
| IN | $45,270 | $48,506 | 380 |
| GA | $45,250 | $46,992 | 800 |
| MT | $44,680 | $47,208 | 80 |
| CO | $44,290 | $42,978 | 330 |
| MA | $43,580 | $41,208 | 510 |
| IA | $43,020 | $49,019 | 180 |

32 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 47 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-trainer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/animal-trainer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 47,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 49,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,000 jobs, or +4.2%. About as fast as average: 4.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,500 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) | 44.4% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 22.6% |
| Some College Courses | 16.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 7.9% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 6.8% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 1.8% |

## What the work involves

- Talk to or interact with animals to familiarize them to human voices or contact.
- Evaluate animals to determine their temperaments, abilities, or aptitude for training.
- Conduct training programs to develop or maintain desired animal behaviors for competition, entertainment, obedience, security, riding, or related purposes.
- Evaluate animals for trainability and ability to perform.
- Feed or exercise animals or provide other general care, such as cleaning or maintaining holding or performance areas.
- Observe animals' physical conditions to detect illness or unhealthy conditions requiring medical care.
- Keep records documenting animal health, diet, or behavior.
- Advise animal owners regarding the purchase of specific animals.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 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.

- Instructing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Complex Problem Solving — 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

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — importance 3.1 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), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.52 |
| S — Social | 3.61 |
| C — Conventional | 2.97 |
| I — Investigative | 2.30 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.08 |
| A — Artistic | 1.76 |

### 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 | 74.6 |
| ISFJ | 72.3 |
| ESTJ | 66.7 |
| ISTP | 65.3 |
| ISFP | 61.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-caretaker) — median $35,360
- [Animal Breeder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-breeder) — median $51,130
- [Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-assistant-and-laboratory-animal-caretaker) — median $38,150
- [Animal Control Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-control-worker) — median $45,660
- [Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal) — median $36,670
- [Exercise Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/exercise-trainer-and-group-fitness-instructor) — median $47,160
- [Veterinary Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-technician) — median $47,380
- [Professional Athlete](https://nuecareer.com/careers/professional-athlete) — median $66,710
- [Referee](https://nuecareer.com/careers/referee) — median $40,710
- [Self-Enrichment Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/self-enrichment-teacher) — median $46,800

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 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 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-trainer