---
title: "Audiobook Narrator"
description: "Performs and records complete books as audiobooks, voicing narration and characters for publishers and authors."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/audiobook-narrator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Audiobook Narrator

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-3011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-3011.00

Performs and records complete books as audiobooks, voicing narration and characters for publishers and authors.

Also advertised as: Audiobook Performer; Narrator; Voice Narrator; Audio Book Reader; Audiobook Voice Actor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $47,340 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $22.76/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $28,190 to $138,440, with the middle half between $35,360 and $75,480
- **Total US employment:** 21,240
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -7.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 32/100 — 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 21,240 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $28,190 |
| 25th | $35,360 |
| 50th (median) | $47,340 |
| 75th | $75,480 |
| 90th | $138,440 |
| Mean (average) | $78,720 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $81,310 | $75,342 | 1,460 |
| MD | $74,480 | $70,961 | 290 |
| NJ | $70,800 | $65,071 | 190 |
| IN | $61,760 | $66,175 | 1,040 |
| NV | $60,460 | $60,473 | 160 |
| MA | $60,200 | $56,923 | 280 |
| FL | $56,360 | $54,499 | 990 |
| RI | $55,110 | $53,882 | 90 |
| PA | $52,080 | $53,376 | 830 |
| HI | $51,030 | $46,412 | 140 |
| CO | $50,660 | $49,160 | 310 |
| TX | $49,050 | $50,537 | 960 |
| TN | $48,290 | $52,563 | 970 |
| AZ | $47,930 | $47,608 | 410 |
| NC | $47,910 | $50,792 | 830 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/audiobook-narrator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/audiobook-narrator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 21,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 20,200 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 1,700 jobs, or -7.6%. Declining: -7.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,000 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:** None.
- **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 | 35.2% |
| Some College Courses | 30.3% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 26.8% |
| Master's Degree | 5.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 2.5% |

## What the work involves

- Read and prepare manuscripts before recording
- Research pronunciations of names and terms
- Develop distinct voices for characters
- Record long-form narration in a studio booth
- Edit and proof audio files for errors
- Audition for titles from publishers and authors
- Deliver finished audio to technical specifications

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.0 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Communications and Media — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Telecommunications — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — 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 Artistic (A), Enterprising (E), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| A — Artistic | 5.78 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.36 |
| S — Social | 3.92 |
| C — Conventional | 3.80 |
| I — Investigative | 2.01 |
| R — Realistic | 1.66 |

### 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 | 79.5 |
| ENFP | 75.7 |
| ESFP | 64.6 |
| INFJ | 62.8 |
| ESFJ | 61.1 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ENFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Broadcast Announcer and Radio Disc Jockey](https://nuecareer.com/careers/broadcast-announcer-and-radio-disc-jockey) — median $47,340
- [News Analyst, Reporter, and Journalist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/news-analyst-reporter-and-journalist) — median $62,200
- [Producer and Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/producer-and-director) — median $90,360
- [Media Programming Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-programming-director) — median $90,360
- [Media Technical Directors/Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-technical-directors-manager) — median $90,360
- [Film and Video Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/film-and-video-editor) — median $75,420
- [Disc Jockey, Except Radio](https://nuecareer.com/careers/disc-jockey) — median Not published by BLS
- [Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/editor) — median $77,920
- [Poet, Lyricist and Creative Writer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/poet-lyricist-and-creative-writer) — median $76,910
- [Writer and Author](https://nuecareer.com/careers/writer-and-author) — median $76,910

## 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

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/audiobook-narrator