---
title: "Court Reporter and Simultaneous Captioner"
description: "Use verbatim methods and equipment to capture, store, retrieve, and transcribe pretrial and trial proceedings or other information. Includes…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-reporter-and-simultaneous-captioner"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Court Reporter and Simultaneous Captioner

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-3092 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-3092.00

Use verbatim methods and equipment to capture, store, retrieve, and transcribe pretrial and trial proceedings or other information. Includes stenocaptioners who operate computerized stenographic captioning equipment to provide captions of live or prerecorded broadcasts for hearing-impaired viewers.

Also advertised as: Captioner; Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR); Court Recorder; Court Reporter; Court Stenographer; Deposition Reporter; Digital Court Reporter; Official Court Reporter.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $72,420 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $34.82/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $42,130 to $130,560, with the middle half between $53,760 and $100,780
- **Total US employment:** 12,870
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -0.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 9/100 — 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 12,870 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $42,130 |
| 25th | $53,760 |
| 50th (median) | $72,420 |
| 75th | $100,780 |
| 90th | $130,560 |
| Mean (average) | $78,760 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $116,020 | $104,787 | 1,400 |
| TX | $110,080 | $113,418 | 1,270 |
| WA | $107,670 | $100,614 | 80 |
| NY | $101,990 | $94,504 | 1,400 |
| IA | $93,810 | $106,891 | 160 |
| RI | $92,250 | $90,194 | 60 |
| MN | $83,680 | $84,850 | 320 |
| CO | $83,010 | $80,552 | 260 |
| MA | $79,940 | $75,588 | 50 |
| AZ | $77,770 | $77,247 | 70 |
| NE | $76,480 | $84,881 | 60 |
| IL | $75,890 | $75,922 | 770 |
| SD | $75,210 | $84,901 | 40 |
| NC | $73,510 | $77,932 | 110 |
| MO | $72,500 | $79,831 | 270 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 19,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 19,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 0 jobs, or -0.1%. Declining: -0.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,800 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:** Postsecondary nondegree award (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:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Proofread transcripts for correct spelling of words.
- Ask speakers to clarify inaudible statements.
- Record verbatim proceedings of courts, legislative assemblies, committee meetings, and other proceedings, using computerized recording equipment, electronic stenograph machines, or stenomasks.
- Provide transcripts of proceedings upon request of judges, lawyers, or the public.
- Respond to requests during court sessions to read portions of the proceedings already recorded.
- Record symbols on computer storage media and use computer aided transcription to translate and display them as text.
- File and store shorthand notes of court session.
- Swear in witnesses.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 1.9 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.

- Time Management — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 1.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 1.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Telecommunications — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral 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 Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.62 |
| A — Artistic | 2.92 |
| S — Social | 2.90 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.64 |
| R — Realistic | 2.21 |
| I — Investigative | 2.13 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 77.4 |
| ESFJ | 71.5 |
| ESTJ | 69.9 |
| ISTJ | 69.0 |
| ENFJ | 53.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $55,570
- [Court, Municipal, and License Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-municipal-and-license-clerk) — median $48,700
- [Paralegal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal) — median $62,890
- [Word Processor and Typist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/word-processor-and-typist) — median $49,280
- [File Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/file-clerk) — median $43,600
- [Correspondence Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/correspondence-clerk) — median $46,800
- [Medical Transcriptionist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-transcriptionist) — median $40,410
- [Office Clerk, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-clerk-general) — median $45,010
- [Data Entry Keyer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-entry-keyer) — median $41,340
- [Medical Records Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-records-specialist) — median $51,140

## 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/court-reporter-and-simultaneous-captioner