---
title: "Mine Rescue Specialist"
description: "Trains for and responds to underground mine emergencies such as fires, explosions and collapses, wearing breathing apparatus to find and rescue trapped…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/mine-rescue-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Mine Rescue Specialist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-5012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-5012.00

Trains for and responds to underground mine emergencies such as fires, explosions and collapses, wearing breathing apparatus to find and rescue trapped miners.

Also advertised as: Mine Rescue Team Member; Mine Rescue Coordinator; Mine Rescue Instructor; Mine Emergency Response Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $61,560 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $29.59/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $46,280 to $100,160, with the middle half between $52,470 and $78,850
- **Total US employment:** 30,590
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +19.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,800 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 30,590 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $46,280 |
| 25th | $52,470 |
| 50th (median) | $61,560 |
| 75th | $78,850 |
| 90th | $100,160 |
| Mean (average) | $68,120 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $104,910 | $98,035 | 570 |
| RI | $84,640 | $82,753 | 60 |
| WV | $81,470 | $91,031 | 320 |
| AK | $80,760 | $78,899 | 140 |
| NM | $79,490 | $86,204 | 790 |
| MN | $74,400 | $75,440 | 270 |
| CO | $73,110 | $70,945 | 400 |
| NY | $69,640 | $64,529 | 1,410 |
| MA | $68,730 | $64,989 | 290 |
| CT | $68,310 | $65,930 | 130 |
| WY | $68,250 | $73,632 | 80 |
| MI | $67,310 | $69,956 | 450 |
| NJ | $66,930 | $61,514 | 270 |
| IL | $65,960 | $65,988 | 1,790 |
| AZ | $65,480 | $65,040 | 440 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/mine-rescue-specialist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mine-rescue-specialist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 31,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 37,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 6,100 jobs, or +19.4%. Much faster than average: 19.4% 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 47.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 19.1% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 9.5% |
| Some College Courses | 9.5% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 4.8% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.8% |

## What the work involves

- Train in breathing apparatus use, exploration and rescue procedures
- Respond to underground fires, explosions and collapses
- Test mine atmospheres for toxic and explosive gases
- Search for, treat and evacuate trapped or injured miners
- Maintain breathing apparatus, gas detectors and rescue equipment
- Plan and run mine emergency drills
- Compete in mine rescue contests
- Restore ventilation and seal fire areas during recovery

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Education and Training — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — 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
- Law and Government — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.7 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
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 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), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.55 |
| C — Conventional | 5.18 |
| I — Investigative | 4.88 |
| S — Social | 3.63 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.64 |
| 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 | 90.7 |
| ISFJ | 78.6 |
| ESTJ | 77.0 |
| ISTP | 70.8 |
| INTJ | 65.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Occupational Health and Safety Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-technician) — median $61,560
- [Health and Safety Engineer, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-and-safety-engineer) — median $115,160
- [Occupational Health and Safety Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-specialist) — median $90,150
- [Environmental Compliance Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-compliance-inspector) — median $80,730
- [Environmental Scientist and Specialist, Including Health](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-scientist-and-specialist) — median $82,220
- [Environmental Science and Protection Technician, Including Health](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-science-and-protection-technician) — median $55,090
- [Environmental Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-engineer) — median $107,110
- [Construction and Building Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-and-building-inspector) — median $74,690
- [Environmental Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/environmental-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $59,920
- [Government Property Inspector and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/government-property-inspector-and-investigator) — median $80,730

## 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/mine-rescue-specialist