---
title: "Freight Forwarder"
description: "Research rates, routings, or modes of transport for shipment of products. Maintain awareness of regulations affecting the international movement of…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/freight-forwarder"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Freight Forwarder

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-5011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-5011.01

Research rates, routings, or modes of transport for shipment of products. Maintain awareness of regulations affecting the international movement of cargo. Make arrangements for additional services, such as storage or inland transportation.

Also advertised as: Air Export Agent; Air Export Coordinator; Export Coordinator; Freight Forwarder; GSA Coordinator (General Services Administration Coordinator); Import Agent; Ocean Export Specialist; Relocation Coordinator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $52,260 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $25.13/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,340 to $79,810, with the middle half between $45,710 and $63,390
- **Total US employment:** 97,670
- **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:** +6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 9,000 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 97,670 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,340 |
| 25th | $45,710 |
| 50th (median) | $52,260 |
| 75th | $63,390 |
| 90th | $79,810 |
| Mean (average) | $57,230 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $76,250 | $69,381 | 60 |
| NH | $67,660 | $64,955 | 80 |
| SD | $64,340 | $72,630 | 200 |
| NE | $62,500 | $69,365 | 390 |
| WA | $60,760 | $56,778 | 2,410 |
| RI | $60,310 | $58,966 | 140 |
| NJ | $60,210 | $55,338 | 4,280 |
| NY | $60,040 | $55,633 | 5,760 |
| IL | $59,750 | $59,775 | 6,110 |
| MT | $59,240 | $62,592 | 370 |
| MA | $58,680 | $55,486 | 820 |
| MN | $58,650 | $59,470 | 1,380 |
| CA | $57,690 | $52,104 | 17,060 |
| WI | $57,290 | $60,885 | 1,280 |
| SC | $57,000 | $60,801 | 1,540 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/freight-forwarder/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/freight-forwarder.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 100,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 106,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 6,200 jobs, or +6.2%. Faster than average: 6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 9,000 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:** 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.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 43.7% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 25.4% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 16.2% |
| Master's Degree | 14.4% |
| Some College Courses | 0.4% |

## What the work involves

- Verify adherence of documentation to customs, insurance, or regulatory requirements.
- Keep records of goods dispatched or received.
- Pay or arrange for payment of freight or insurance fees or other charges.
- Determine efficient and cost-effective methods of moving goods from one location to another.
- Provide shipment status notification to exporters, consignees, or insurers.
- Inform clients of factors such as shipping options, timelines, transfers, or regulations affecting shipments.
- Monitor or record locations of goods in transit.
- Maintain current knowledge of relevant legislation, political situations, or other factors that could affect freight shipping.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 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.

- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Transportation — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.5 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), Enterprising (E), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.60 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.94 |
| R — Realistic | 3.51 |
| I — Investigative | 2.59 |
| S — Social | 1.84 |
| 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 | 89.3 |
| ISTJ | 87.9 |
| ISFJ | 76.4 |
| ESFJ | 71.5 |
| ENTJ | 61.3 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [Customs Broker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customs-broker) — median $80,730
- [Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shipping-receiving-and-inventory-clerk) — median $45,260
- [Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor) — median $58,170
- [Postal Service Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-clerk) — median $62,130
- [Dispatcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dispatcher) — median $50,340
- [Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agent and Travel Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/reservation-and-transportation-ticket-agent-and-travel-clerk) — median $44,390
- [First-Line Supervisor of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-material-moving-machine-and-vehicle-operators) — median $62,840
- [Postal Service Mail Carrier](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-carrier) — median $60,550
- [Courier and Messenger](https://nuecareer.com/careers/courier-and-messenger) — median $39,200

## 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/freight-forwarder