---
title: "Ice Sculptor"
description: "Carves blocks of ice into sculptures for weddings, hotels, corporate events, festivals and competitions using chainsaws, chisels and die grinders."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/ice-sculptor"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Ice Sculptor

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-1012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-1012.00

Carves blocks of ice into sculptures for weddings, hotels, corporate events, festivals and competitions using chainsaws, chisels and die grinders.

Also advertised as: Ice Carver; Professional Ice Carver; Ice Artist; Certified Ice Carver.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $46,080 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $22.15/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $25,960 to $71,990, with the middle half between $35,020 and $58,240
- **Total US employment:** 4,580
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 44/100 — 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 4,580 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $25,960 |
| 25th | $35,020 |
| 50th (median) | $46,080 |
| 75th | $58,240 |
| 90th | $71,990 |
| Mean (average) | $49,740 |

### 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 | $100,540 | $90,806 | 170 |
| MO | $61,780 | $68,027 | 140 |
| WI | $58,650 | $62,331 | 190 |
| TX | $54,690 | $56,348 | 870 |
| ME | $53,380 | $55,003 | 50 |
| OR | $51,060 | $49,400 | 170 |
| NY | $49,020 | $45,422 | 50 |
| GA | $48,880 | $50,762 | Not published by BLS |
| FL | $48,710 | $47,102 | 270 |
| MA | $47,660 | $45,066 | 50 |
| AZ | $46,300 | $45,989 | Not published by BLS |
| WA | $44,120 | $41,229 | 80 |
| CO | $43,620 | $42,328 | Not published by BLS |
| IL | $43,040 | $43,058 | Not published by BLS |
| AK | $41,600 | $40,641 | Not published by BLS |

8 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 23 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/ice-sculptor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/ice-sculptor.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 11,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 11,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 200 jobs, or +2.0%. Slower than average: 2.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,000 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:** No formal educational credential (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:** 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) | 26.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 26.1% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 17.4% |
| Some College Courses | 17.4% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 8.7% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.4% |

## What the work involves

- Design ice sculptures with clients and event planners
- Transfer templates and logos onto ice blocks
- Rough out shapes with chainsaws and refine with chisels and die grinders
- Fuse blocks together for large display pieces
- Make ice luges, bars and embedded logos
- Transport and set up sculptures at events
- Compete and demonstrate at ice carving festivals
- Maintain freezers and clear-ice block equipment

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 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
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 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 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Design — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fine Arts — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Originality — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Finger Dexterity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — 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 Artistic (A), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| A — Artistic | 5.95 |
| R — Realistic | 5.89 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.86 |
| C — Conventional | 2.66 |
| I — Investigative | 1.85 |
| S — Social | 1.68 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INTP | 66.4 |
| ISTP | 62.0 |
| INFP | 61.6 |
| INTJ | 60.6 |
| ISFP | 58.9 |

Best-fitting types: INTP, ISTP, INFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Craft Artist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/craft-artist) — median $46,080
- [Jeweler and Precious Stone and Metal Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/jeweler-and-precious-stone-and-metal-worker) — median $52,540
- [Fine Artist, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fine-artist) — median $55,490
- [Etcher and Engraver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/etcher-and-engraver) — median $43,310
- [Fabric and Apparel Patternmaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fabric-and-apparel-patternmaker) — median $62,750
- [Painting, Coating, and Decorating Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/painting-coating-and-decorating-worker) — median $41,600
- [Model Maker, Wood](https://nuecareer.com/careers/model-maker-wood) — median $56,550
- [Sewer, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sewer-hand) — median $36,480
- [Patternmaker, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/patternmaker-metal-and-plastic) — median $58,000
- [Potter, Manufacturing](https://nuecareer.com/careers/potter-manufacturing) — median $46,170

## 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/ice-sculptor