---
title: "Crossing Guard and Flagger"
description: "Guide or control vehicular or pedestrian traffic at such places as streets, schools, railroad crossings, or construction sites."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/crossing-guard-and-flagger"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Crossing Guard and Flagger

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-9091 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-9091.00

Guide or control vehicular or pedestrian traffic at such places as streets, schools, railroad crossings, or construction sites.

Also advertised as: Adult Crossing Guard; Community Service Officer; Crossing Guard; Road Crossing Guard; School Crossing Guard; Substitute Crossing Guard.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $38,100 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $18.32/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $30,840 to $61,690, with the middle half between $34,430 and $47,540
- **Total US employment:** 94,360
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 17,300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 55/100 — 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 94,360 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $30,840 |
| 25th | $34,430 |
| 50th (median) | $38,100 |
| 75th | $47,540 |
| 90th | $61,690 |
| Mean (average) | $43,350 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ND | $60,230 | $67,705 | 50 |
| CA | $50,610 | $45,710 | 9,390 |
| WA | $48,940 | $45,733 | 3,340 |
| MN | $48,100 | $48,773 | 260 |
| OR | $47,110 | $45,578 | 2,250 |
| WY | $47,070 | $50,782 | 160 |
| SD | $46,940 | $52,988 | 60 |
| NH | $45,980 | $44,142 | 440 |
| VT | $45,410 | $46,357 | 340 |
| NY | $44,730 | $41,447 | 10,430 |
| MA | $43,460 | $41,094 | 1,700 |
| HI | $42,780 | $38,908 | 230 |
| CT | $41,950 | $40,488 | 1,670 |
| NJ | $41,600 | $38,234 | 7,270 |
| IA | $41,240 | $46,991 | 170 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/crossing-guard-and-flagger/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/crossing-guard-and-flagger.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 94,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 98,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,300 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 17,300 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:** No formal educational credential (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.

### 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) | 72.8% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 18.0% |
| Some College Courses | 6.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 3.2% |

## What the work involves

- Direct or escort pedestrians across streets, stopping traffic, as necessary.
- Communicate traffic and crossing rules and other information to students and adults.
- Guide or control vehicular or pedestrian traffic at such places as street and railroad crossings and construction sites.
- Report unsafe behavior of children to school officials.
- Monitor traffic flow to locate safe gaps through which pedestrians can cross streets.
- Record license numbers of vehicles disregarding traffic signals, and report infractions to appropriate authorities.
- Direct traffic movement or warn of hazards, using signs, flags, lanterns, and hand signals.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Selective Attention — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — 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), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.86 |
| C — Conventional | 3.62 |
| S — Social | 3.08 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.00 |
| I — Investigative | 1.65 |
| A — Artistic | 1.11 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 77.7 |
| ESTJ | 77.4 |
| ISFJ | 76.3 |
| ESFJ | 69.7 |
| ESTP | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Transit and Railroad Police](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transit-and-railroad-police) — median $90,230
- [Subway and Streetcar Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/subway-and-streetcar-operator) — median $86,380
- [Railroad Conductor and Yardmaster](https://nuecareer.com/careers/railroad-conductor-and-yardmaster) — median $78,000
- [Security Guard](https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-guard) — median $38,020
- [Parking Enforcement Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/parking-enforcement-worker) — median $46,730
- [Bridge and Lock Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bridge-and-lock-tender) — median $57,700
- [Locomotive Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/locomotive-engineer) — median $81,410
- [Transportation Security Screener](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-security-screener) — median $66,770
- [Bus Driver, Transit and Intercity](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bus-driver-transit-and-intercity) — median $59,050
- [Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operator and Locomotive Firer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/railroad-brake-signal-and-switch-operator-and-locomotive-firer) — median $68,840

## 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/crossing-guard-and-flagger