---
title: "Courier and Messenger"
description: "Pick up and deliver messages, documents, packages, and other items between offices or departments within an establishment or directly to other business…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/courier-and-messenger"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Courier and Messenger

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-5021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-5021.00

Pick up and deliver messages, documents, packages, and other items between offices or departments within an establishment or directly to other business concerns, traveling by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, automobile, or public conveyance.

Also advertised as: Courier; Delivery Driver; Driver; Lab Courier (Laboratory Courier); Mail Carrier; Mailroom Courier; Messenger; Security Messenger.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $39,200 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $18.85/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $31,550 to $50,330, with the middle half between $36,070 and $45,280
- **Total US employment:** 68,640
- **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:** +8.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 23,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 46/100 — 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 68,640 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $31,550 |
| 25th | $36,070 |
| 50th (median) | $39,200 |
| 75th | $45,280 |
| 90th | $50,330 |
| Mean (average) | $40,970 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NV | $46,520 | $46,530 | 530 |
| WA | $46,500 | $43,453 | 1,190 |
| VT | $45,600 | $46,551 | 50 |
| DC | $45,210 | $41,137 | 120 |
| OR | $45,170 | $43,701 | 850 |
| CO | $45,140 | $43,803 | 640 |
| CA | $44,970 | $40,616 | 7,240 |
| MN | $44,860 | $45,487 | 440 |
| UT | $42,840 | $43,332 | 850 |
| MA | $42,380 | $40,073 | 1,560 |
| AK | $41,720 | $40,759 | 160 |
| ME | $41,710 | $42,978 | 40 |
| MO | $41,410 | $45,597 | 1,060 |
| NJ | $40,870 | $37,563 | 2,100 |
| NH | $40,630 | $39,005 | 190 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/courier-and-messenger/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/courier-and-messenger.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 228,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 247,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 18,200 jobs, or +8.0%. Much faster than average: 8.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 23,800 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:** Short-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Sort items to be delivered according to the delivery route.
- Walk, ride bicycles, drive vehicles, or use public conveyances to reach destinations to deliver messages or materials.
- Receive messages or materials to be delivered, and information on recipients, such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, and delivery instructions, communicated via telephone, two-way radio, or in person.
- Deliver messages and items, such as newspapers, documents, and packages, between establishment departments and to other establishments and private homes.
- Plan and follow the most efficient routes for delivering goods.
- Load vehicles with listed goods, ensuring goods are loaded correctly and taking precautions with hazardous goods.
- Unload and sort items collected along delivery routes.
- Perform routine maintenance on delivery vehicles, such as monitoring fluid levels and replenishing fuel.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.3 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
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.5 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.

- Time Management — importance 3.3 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 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Transportation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — 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 Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.07 |
| R — Realistic | 4.47 |
| S — Social | 2.96 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.86 |
| I — Investigative | 1.07 |
| 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 85.3 |
| ISFJ | 84.3 |
| ISTJ | 81.6 |
| ESFJ | 79.2 |
| ESTP | 57.4 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISFJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Postal Service Mail Carrier](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier) — median $60,550
- [Light Truck Driver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/light-truck-driver) — median $44,860
- [Mail Clerk and Mail Machine Operator, Except Postal Service](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mail-clerk-and-mail-machine-operator) — median $39,280
- [Postal Service Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-clerk) — median $62,130
- [Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shipping-receiving-and-inventory-clerk) — median $45,260
- [Driver/Sales Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/driver-sales-worker) — median $38,770
- [Postal Service Mail Sorter, Processor, and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-sorter-processor-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $58,470
- [Dispatcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dispatcher) — median $50,340
- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [Baggage Porter and Bellhop](https://nuecareer.com/careers/baggage-porter-and-bellhop) — median $37,080

## 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/courier-and-messenger