---
title: "Cheesemaker"
description: "Turns milk into cheese by controlling cultures, curd, pressing and aging, at dairy plants, creameries and farmstead operations."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cheesemaker"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Cheesemaker

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-3092 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-3092.00

Turns milk into cheese by controlling cultures, curd, pressing and aging, at dairy plants, creameries and farmstead operations.

Also advertised as: Artisan Cheesemaker; Licensed Cheesemaker; Head Cheesemaker; Cheese Affineur; Farmstead Cheesemaker.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $42,290 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $20.33/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $31,990 to $58,940, with the middle half between $36,350 and $49,670
- **Total US employment:** 174,520
- **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:** +6.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 23,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 42/100 — 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 174,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $31,990 |
| 25th | $36,350 |
| 50th (median) | $42,290 |
| 75th | $49,670 |
| 90th | $58,940 |
| Mean (average) | $43,750 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| VT | $50,180 | $51,226 | 1,000 |
| ID | $49,570 | $51,909 | 1,700 |
| WI | $48,360 | $51,395 | 18,040 |
| IA | $48,300 | $55,035 | 4,160 |
| IL | $48,130 | $48,150 | 12,320 |
| KY | $46,900 | $52,019 | 4,570 |
| GA | $46,490 | $48,280 | 4,290 |
| MO | $45,690 | $50,310 | 2,280 |
| CO | $44,900 | $43,570 | 3,880 |
| OH | $44,590 | $48,063 | 7,040 |
| MN | $42,940 | $43,540 | 7,660 |
| KS | $42,850 | $47,575 | 3,230 |
| WA | $42,710 | $39,911 | 5,700 |
| TN | $42,610 | $46,381 | 2,920 |
| ME | $42,260 | $43,545 | 610 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cheesemaker/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cheesemaker.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 176,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 188,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 11,400 jobs, or +6.5%. Faster than average: 6.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 23,100 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) | 37.8% |
| Some College Courses | 26.7% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 21.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 13.9% |

## What the work involves

- Test and pasteurize incoming milk
- Add cultures and rennet and monitor coagulation
- Cut, cook and stir curd to target texture and acidity
- Mold, press and salt cheese
- Turn, wash and monitor cheese during aging
- Maintain sanitation and food safety programs
- Record batch data and adjust recipes

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Food Production — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Information Ordering — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — 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), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.09 |
| C — Conventional | 4.57 |
| I — Investigative | 3.12 |
| A — Artistic | 2.80 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.62 |
| S — Social | 1.50 |

### 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 | 79.7 |
| INTJ | 71.9 |
| ESTJ | 71.4 |
| ISFJ | 69.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Food Batchmaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-batchmaker) — median $42,290
- [Food Cooking Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-cooking-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $41,590
- [Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-and-tobacco-roasting-baking-and-drying-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $44,810
- [Mixing and Blending Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mixing-and-blending-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $48,990
- [Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/separating-filtering-clarifying-precipitating-and-still-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $51,610
- [Baker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/baker) — median $37,160
- [Grader and Sorter, Agricultural Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/grader-and-sorter-agricultural-products) — median $35,730
- [Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cooling-and-freezing-equipment-operator-and-tender) — median $41,330
- [Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cleaning-washing-and-metal-pickling-equipment-operator-and-tender) — median $43,530
- [Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/crushing-grinding-and-polishing-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $48,540

## 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/cheesemaker