---
title: "Dialect Coach"
description: "Teaches actors accents, dialects and vocal technique for theatre, film and TV roles, often on set and in rehearsals."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/dialect-coach"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Dialect Coach

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-1121 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-1121.00

Teaches actors accents, dialects and vocal technique for theatre, film and TV roles, often on set and in rehearsals.

Also advertised as: Voice and Dialect Coach; Accent Coach; Voice Coach (Theatre); Dialogue Coach; Speech Coach.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $78,620 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,570 to $163,350, with the middle half between $61,620 and $103,850
- **Total US employment:** 93,560
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 8,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 56/100 — 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 93,560 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,570 |
| 25th | $61,620 |
| 50th (median) | $78,620 |
| 75th | $103,850 |
| 90th | $163,350 |
| Mean (average) | $94,700 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DE | $103,320 | $103,519 | 150 |
| CA | $99,410 | $89,785 | 9,820 |
| NY | $98,850 | $91,595 | 14,920 |
| VT | $97,980 | $100,022 | 180 |
| RI | $97,580 | $95,405 | 440 |
| DC | $96,900 | $88,170 | 350 |
| MA | $85,820 | $81,148 | 4,960 |
| MD | $85,590 | $81,546 | 1,280 |
| MI | $82,990 | $86,253 | 2,410 |
| NJ | $80,100 | $73,618 | 3,300 |
| GA | $79,870 | $82,945 | 1,910 |
| ME | $79,860 | $82,287 | 340 |
| NH | $79,090 | $75,928 | 440 |
| LA | $78,710 | $89,233 | 720 |
| CT | $78,600 | $75,861 | 1,430 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 116,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 119,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,600 jobs, or +2.2%. Slower than average: 2.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 8,000 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:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 50.7% |
| Doctoral Degree | 31.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 13.9% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 1.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 1.4% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 0.7% |

## What the work involves

- Research accents and dialects using recordings and phonetics
- Create dialect breakdowns and practice materials
- Coach actors one on one in rehearsal
- Listen during takes and give notes on accuracy
- Teach voice, breath and vocal health
- Coach invented or historical languages for productions
- Teach voice and speech courses in theatre programs

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — 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 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 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
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Fine Arts — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- History and Archeology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral 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
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — 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), Artistic (A), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.99 |
| A — Artistic | 6.11 |
| I — Investigative | 4.64 |
| R — Realistic | 3.03 |
| C — Conventional | 2.61 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.12 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INFP | 83.7 |
| ENFP | 80.4 |
| INFJ | 77.0 |
| ENFJ | 69.6 |
| ISFP | 67.1 |

Best-fitting types: INFP, ENFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Art, Drama, and Music Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-drama-and-music-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,620
- [Self-Enrichment Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/self-enrichment-teacher) — median $46,800
- [English Language and Literature Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/english-language-and-literature-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,760
- [Teaching Assistant, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-postsecondary) — median $42,910
- [Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/area-ethnic-and-cultural-studies-teacher-postsecondary) — median $85,020
- [Architecture Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architecture-teacher-postsecondary) — median $96,870
- [Communications Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/communications-teacher-postsecondary) — median $78,580
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Music Director and Composer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/music-director-and-composer) — median $73,710
- [Education Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-teacher-postsecondary) — median $75,350

## 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/dialect-coach