---
title: "Career/Technical Education Teacher, Postsecondary"
description: "Teach vocational courses intended to provide occupational training below the baccalaureate level in subjects such as construction, mechanics/repair…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-postsecondary"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Career/Technical Education Teacher, Postsecondary

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-1194 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-1194.00

Teach vocational courses intended to provide occupational training below the baccalaureate level in subjects such as construction, mechanics/repair, manufacturing, transportation, or cosmetology, primarily to students who have graduated from or left high school. Teaching takes place in public or private schools whose primary business is academic or vocational education.

Also advertised as: Automotive Instructor; Automotive Technology Instructor; Cosmetology Instructor; Flight Instructor; HVAC-R Instructor (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, And Refrigeration Instructor); Instructor; Professor; Teacher.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $63,820 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.68/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $41,960 to $108,620, with the middle half between $50,320 and $82,360
- **Total US employment:** 114,110
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +0.7% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 8,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 57/100 — 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 114,110 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $41,960 |
| 25th | $50,320 |
| 50th (median) | $63,820 |
| 75th | $82,360 |
| 90th | $108,620 |
| Mean (average) | $72,060 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WI | $82,620 | $87,805 | 2,000 |
| SC | $79,610 | $84,918 | 1,980 |
| MA | $78,780 | $74,492 | 1,660 |
| WA | $77,530 | $72,449 | 3,610 |
| AK | $77,310 | $75,528 | 1,120 |
| MN | $76,920 | $77,996 | 1,510 |
| CA | $76,630 | $69,211 | 11,040 |
| NY | $75,170 | $69,653 | 5,250 |
| WY | $74,210 | $80,062 | 360 |
| ND | $73,570 | $82,701 | 430 |
| SD | $72,940 | $82,338 | 350 |
| NJ | $72,440 | $66,578 | 2,590 |
| CO | $70,130 | $68,053 | 2,060 |
| OK | $67,060 | $76,341 | 3,040 |
| OR | $65,430 | $63,302 | 1,140 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-postsecondary/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-postsecondary.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 122,200 in the 2024–2034 base year to 123,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 800 jobs, or +0.7%. Slower than average: 0.7% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 8,800 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:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 42.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 20.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 16.2% |
| Master's Degree | 7.6% |
| Some College Courses | 6.9% |
| Doctoral Degree | 4.7% |

## What the work involves

- Present lectures and conduct discussions to increase students' knowledge and competence using visual aids, such as graphs, charts, videotapes, and slides.
- Prepare reports and maintain records, such as student grades, attendance rolls, and training activity details.
- Administer oral, written, or performance tests to measure progress and to evaluate training effectiveness.
- Develop curricula and plan course content and methods of instruction.
- Observe and evaluate students' work to determine progress, provide feedback, and make suggestions for improvement.
- Select and assemble books, materials, supplies, and equipment for training, courses, or projects.
- Advise students on course selection, career decisions, and other academic and vocational concerns.
- Integrate academic and vocational curricula so that students can obtain a variety of skills.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 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.

- Instructing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — 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 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Education and Training — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — 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 Social (S), Investigative (I), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.61 |
| I — Investigative | 4.15 |
| R — Realistic | 3.75 |
| C — Conventional | 3.29 |
| A — Artistic | 3.15 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.11 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFP | 66.2 |
| ESFP | 62.9 |
| ISFJ | 62.5 |
| INFJ | 61.7 |
| ESFJ | 60.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISFP, ESFP, ISFJ, INFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Career/Technical Education Teacher, Secondary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-secondary-school) — median $66,270
- [Career/Technical Education Teacher, Middle School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/career-technical-education-teacher-middle-school) — median $65,030
- [Engineering Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/engineering-teacher-postsecondary) — median $109,270
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Training and Development Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist) — median $69,280
- [Computer Science Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-science-teacher-postsecondary) — median $96,980
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Tutor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tutor) — median $43,350
- [Industrial Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $66,120
- [Teaching Assistant, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-postsecondary) — median $42,910

## 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/career-technical-education-teacher-postsecondary