---
title: "Earth Driller, Except Oil and Gas"
description: "Operate a variety of drills such as rotary, churn, and pneumatic to tap subsurface water and salt deposits, to remove core samples during mineral…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/earth-driller"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Earth Driller, Except Oil and Gas

**Category:** Construction and Extraction · **SOC code:** 47-5023 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 47-5023.00

Operate a variety of drills such as rotary, churn, and pneumatic to tap subsurface water and salt deposits, to remove core samples during mineral exploration or soil testing, and to facilitate the use of explosives in mining or construction. Includes horizontal and earth boring machine operators.

Also advertised as: Blast Hole Driller; Diamond Driller; Drill Operator; Driller; Hard Rock Drill Operator; Highwall Drill Operator; Rock Drill Operator; Underground Drill Operator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $60,190 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $28.94/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,460 to $83,800, with the middle half between $49,900 and $72,450
- **Total US employment:** 19,450
- **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:** +3.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 73/100 — 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 19,450 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,460 |
| 25th | $49,900 |
| 50th (median) | $60,190 |
| 75th | $72,450 |
| 90th | $83,800 |
| Mean (average) | $62,830 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $80,490 | $75,215 | 210 |
| AK | $80,040 | $78,195 | 290 |
| IL | $79,080 | $79,113 | 330 |
| NJ | $77,950 | $71,642 | 400 |
| MT | $71,470 | $75,514 | 180 |
| WI | $68,320 | $72,607 | 280 |
| CA | $66,910 | $60,432 | 1,630 |
| NH | $66,410 | $63,755 | 80 |
| CT | $65,710 | $63,421 | 140 |
| KS | $65,600 | $72,834 | 80 |
| OR | $64,920 | $62,809 | 510 |
| CO | $64,820 | $62,900 | 280 |
| WY | $64,450 | $69,532 | 90 |
| MA | $64,180 | $60,686 | 130 |
| MN | $63,790 | $64,682 | 340 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/earth-driller/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/earth-driller.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 19,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 20,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 700 jobs, or +3.6%. About as fast as average: 3.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,400 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:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Long-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 | 15.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 12.2% |

## What the work involves

- Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills.
- Select and attach drill bits and drill rods, adding more rods as hole depths increase, and changing drill bits as needed.
- Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes.
- Perform routine maintenance and upgrade work on machines and equipment, such as replacing parts, building up drill bits, and lubricating machinery.
- Record drilling progress and geological data.
- Operate machines to flush earth cuttings or to blow dust from holes.
- Verify depths and alignments of boring positions.
- Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — 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
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.3 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Selection — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mechanical — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Control Precision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reaction Time — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Depth Perception — importance 3.6 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 | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 3.67 |
| I — Investigative | 3.65 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.70 |
| S — Social | 1.22 |
| A — Artistic | 1.14 |

### 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 | 89.7 |
| ISTP | 81.8 |
| INTJ | 72.3 |
| ESTJ | 70.4 |
| ISFJ | 68.9 |

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.

- [Rotary Drill Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rotary-drill-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $67,890
- [Helpers--Extraction Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-extraction-worker) — median $47,730
- [Drilling and Boring Machine Tool Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/drilling-and-boring-machine-tool-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $49,080
- [Continuous Mining Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/continuous-mining-machine-operator) — median $61,810
- [Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operator, Surface Mining](https://nuecareer.com/careers/excavating-and-loading-machine-and-dragline-operator-surface-mining) — median $57,430
- [Operating Engineer and Other Construction Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operating-engineer-and-other-construction-equipment-operator) — median $59,850
- [Explosives Worker, Ordnance Handling Expert, and Blaster](https://nuecareer.com/careers/explosives-worker-ordnance-handling-expert-and-blaster) — median $61,390
- [Oil and Gas Roustabout](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oil-and-gas-roustabout) — median $46,960
- [Service Unit Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/service-unit-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $58,160
- [Construction Laborer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-laborer) — median $47,120

## 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/earth-driller