---
title: "Milliner"
description: "Designs and handcrafts hats and headpieces for fashion clients, brides, theater and film productions, and retail shops."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/milliner"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Milliner

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-6052 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-6052.00

Designs and handcrafts hats and headpieces for fashion clients, brides, theater and film productions, and retail shops.

Also advertised as: Hat Maker; Hat Designer; Theatrical Milliner; Headwear Designer; Millinery Artisan.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $41,640 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $20.02/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $29,920 to $63,670, with the middle half between $35,230 and $50,200
- **Total US employment:** 13,920
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -8.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,700 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 13,920 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $29,920 |
| 25th | $35,230 |
| 50th (median) | $41,640 |
| 75th | $50,200 |
| 90th | $63,670 |
| Mean (average) | $45,140 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $60,210 | $55,791 | 1,160 |
| DC | $57,720 | $52,520 | 80 |
| WA | $54,300 | $50,741 | 100 |
| HI | $53,680 | $48,822 | Not published by BLS |
| CO | $51,110 | $49,596 | 160 |
| MA | $50,470 | $47,723 | Not published by BLS |
| NV | $49,150 | $49,160 | 100 |
| PA | $48,310 | $49,512 | 610 |
| MO | $48,240 | $53,118 | 200 |
| MD | $48,200 | $45,923 | Not published by BLS |
| UT | $48,040 | $48,592 | 290 |
| OR | $47,450 | $45,907 | 100 |
| MN | $46,180 | $46,826 | 290 |
| VA | $46,060 | $45,557 | 300 |
| NH | $45,970 | $44,132 | 60 |

28 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 43 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/milliner/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/milliner.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 33,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 30,300 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 2,900 jobs, or -8.8%. Declining: -8.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 3,700 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:** 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:** Moderate-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) | 57.7% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 16.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 16.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 9.5% |

## What the work involves

- Block felt and straw hats over wooden forms
- Sew fabric hats and build fascinators and headpieces
- Trim hats with ribbon, feathers, flowers, and veiling
- Fit custom hats to clients' head measurements
- Build period hats for theater and film from designer sketches
- Repair and restyle vintage hats
- Sell collections to boutiques and private clients

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- 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
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.0 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.

- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Visualization — importance 3.9 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
- Near Vision — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — 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 Realistic (R), Artistic (A), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.92 |
| A — Artistic | 4.39 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.15 |
| C — Conventional | 3.13 |
| S — Social | 1.99 |
| I — Investigative | 1.16 |

### 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 | 62.5 |
| ISTP | 60.4 |
| ESTJ | 57.5 |
| ISFJ | 56.7 |
| ESTP | 55.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Tailor, Dressmaker, and Custom Sewer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tailor-dressmaker-and-custom-sewer) — median $41,640
- [Sewer, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sewer-hand) — median $36,480
- [Fabric and Apparel Patternmaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fabric-and-apparel-patternmaker) — median $62,750
- [Sewing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sewing-machine-operator) — median $36,670
- [Shoe and Leather Worker and Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shoe-and-leather-worker-and-repairer) — median $37,800
- [Presser, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials](https://nuecareer.com/careers/presser-textile-garment-and-related-materials) — median $35,060
- [Shoe Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shoe-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $35,650
- [Patternmaker, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/patternmaker-metal-and-plastic) — median $58,000
- [Upholsterer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/upholsterer) — median $46,340
- [Fashion Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fashion-designer) — median $80,960

## 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/milliner