---
title: "Maritime Pilot"
description: "A state-licensed mariner who boards large ships at sea and guides them over river bars and through harbors and channels to the dock."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/maritime-pilot"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Maritime Pilot

**Category:** Transportation and Material Moving · **SOC code:** 53-5021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 53-5021.00

A state-licensed mariner who boards large ships at sea and guides them over river bars and through harbors and channels to the dock.

Also advertised as: State-Licensed Pilot; Bar Pilot; Marine Pilot; Branch Pilot; Ship Pilot; River Pilot.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $92,460 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $44.45/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,420 to $170,640, with the middle half between $63,880 and $127,180
- **Total US employment:** 36,850
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 65/100 — 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 36,850 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,420 |
| 25th | $63,880 |
| 50th (median) | $92,460 |
| 75th | $127,180 |
| 90th | $170,640 |
| Mean (average) | $103,720 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MD | $138,950 | $132,385 | 450 |
| TN | $132,710 | $144,454 | 940 |
| LA | $117,160 | $132,824 | 6,830 |
| TX | $111,390 | $114,768 | 3,400 |
| CA | $110,090 | $99,431 | 2,420 |
| NY | $104,800 | $97,108 | 1,930 |
| MS | $104,220 | $119,858 | 570 |
| WA | $103,730 | $96,932 | 1,560 |
| IA | $97,700 | $111,324 | 80 |
| OR | $97,050 | $93,894 | 350 |
| IN | $92,000 | $98,576 | 1,010 |
| NJ | $90,310 | $83,002 | 510 |
| AK | $88,230 | $86,197 | 710 |
| VA | $87,610 | $86,653 | 2,270 |
| WV | $85,290 | $95,299 | 110 |

25 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 40 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/maritime-pilot/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/maritime-pilot.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 41,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 42,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,700 jobs, or +4.0%. About as fast as average: 4.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 3,800 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:** Postsecondary nondegree award (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:** Less than 5 years.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 42.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 36.6% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 8.4% |
| Some College Courses | 5.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 4.5% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 2.2% |

## What the work involves

- Board inbound and outbound ships from a pilot boat or helicopter
- Review the ship's handling characteristics and condition with the master
- Give helm and engine orders to navigate bars, channels, and harbors
- Direct tugboats during docking and undocking
- Communicate with vessel traffic services and other ships
- Assess weather, tide, current, and traffic before and during each transit
- Complete continuing training and license upgrades for larger vessels
- Report navigation hazards and incidents to the pilot commission

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.5 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
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 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.

- Operation and Control — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Transportation — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Geography — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral 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
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Spatial Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — 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 Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.73 |
| C — Conventional | 4.81 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.39 |
| I — Investigative | 2.64 |
| S — Social | 1.88 |
| 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 88.9 |
| ESTJ | 85.8 |
| ISFJ | 71.1 |
| ESTP | 68.6 |
| ISTP | 68.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Captain, Mate, and Pilot of Water Vessels](https://nuecareer.com/careers/captain-mate-and-pilot-of-water-vessels) — median $92,460
- [Sailor and Marine Oiler](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sailor-and-marine-oiler) — median $51,520
- [Motorboat Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/motorboat-operator) — median $47,520
- [Ship Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ship-engineer) — median $109,530
- [Airline Pilot](https://nuecareer.com/careers/airline-pilot) — median $232,140
- [Commercial Pilot](https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-pilot) — median $123,220
- [Transportation Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-inspector) — median $92,100
- [Bridge and Lock Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bridge-and-lock-tender) — median $57,700
- [Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor) — median $58,170
- [Locomotive Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/locomotive-engineer) — median $81,410

## 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/maritime-pilot