---
title: "What can you do with a social work degree?"
description: "14 careers social work graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/social-work"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with a social work degree?

**What the degree involves:** Human behaviour, policy, ethics, and supervised placements with real caseloads.

Social work is a licensed field with a clear bachelor-to-master ladder. The bachelor typically leads to case-carrying and assistant roles; the clinical titles, and most supervisory ones, want the master and the licence that follows it.

14 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 6 of 14 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 14 of 14 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) | $45,930 | +6.4% | 50,600 | High school |
| 2 | Community Health Worker | $51,850 | +11.3% | 7,800 | High school |
| 3 | [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) | $54,210 | +1.0% | 14,000 | High school |
| 4 | Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselor | $60,320 | +10.4% | 104,400 | Not published by BLS |
| 5 | Rehabilitation Counselor | $46,850 | +1.4% | 10,000 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 6 | Probation Officer and Correctional Treatment Specialist | $66,270 | +2.6% | 7,900 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | [Healthcare Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/healthcare-social-worker) | $67,880 | +7.7% | 18,400 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 8 | [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) | $59,550 | +3.4% | 35,100 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | [Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker) | $60,280 | +9.7% | 13,500 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 10 | Mental Health Counselor | $60,320 | +10.4% | 104,400 | Not published by BLS |
| 11 | Marriage and Family Therapist | $66,940 | +12.6% | 7,700 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 12 | [Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/educational-guidance-and-career-counselor-and-advisor) | $64,330 | +3.5% | 31,000 | Master's (graduate study) |
| 13 | [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) | $80,390 | +6.4% | 18,600 | Bachelor's |
| 14 | Social Work Teacher, Postsecondary | $77,570 | +2.3% | 1,300 | Doctorate (graduate study) |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

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This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 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