---
title: "Mortician, Undertaker, and Funeral Arranger"
description: "Perform various tasks to arrange and direct individual funeral services, such as coordinating transportation of body to mortuary, interviewing family or…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/mortician-undertaker-and-funeral-arranger"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Mortician, Undertaker, and Funeral Arranger

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-4031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-4031.00

Perform various tasks to arrange and direct individual funeral services, such as coordinating transportation of body to mortuary, interviewing family or other authorized person to arrange details, selecting pallbearers, aiding with the selection of officials for religious rites, and providing transportation for mourners.

Also advertised as: Funeral Arrangement Director; Funeral Arranger; Funeral Counselor; Funeral Director; Funeral Family Service Assistant; Funeral Location Manager; Funeral Prearrangement Counselor; Licensed Funeral Director.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $55,010 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $26.45/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $33,350 to $88,620, with the middle half between $42,430 and $72,010
- **Total US employment:** 25,100
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 3,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 62/100 — 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 25,100 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $33,350 |
| 25th | $42,430 |
| 50th (median) | $55,010 |
| 75th | $72,010 |
| 90th | $88,620 |
| Mean (average) | $58,160 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DE | $81,530 | $81,687 | 80 |
| UT | $72,800 | $73,637 | 240 |
| IL | $69,600 | $69,629 | 1,320 |
| NJ | $69,110 | $63,517 | 580 |
| NE | $64,310 | $71,374 | 210 |
| IA | $63,700 | $72,583 | 640 |
| PA | $63,580 | $65,162 | 910 |
| NY | $63,090 | $58,459 | 1,030 |
| MA | $62,120 | $58,738 | 430 |
| IN | $60,890 | $65,242 | 630 |
| ME | $60,880 | $62,731 | 80 |
| CO | $60,850 | $59,048 | 320 |
| NC | $60,730 | $64,383 | 1,000 |
| MI | $60,450 | $62,827 | 810 |
| ID | $60,250 | $63,093 | 160 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/mortician-undertaker-and-funeral-arranger/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mortician-undertaker-and-funeral-arranger.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 26,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 27,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 800 jobs, or +3.0%. About as fast as average: 3.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 3,000 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:** Associate's degree (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 |
| --- | --- |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 73.2% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 15.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 11.2% |
| Some College Courses | 0.3% |

## What the work involves

- Offer counsel and comfort to bereaved families or friends.
- Provide or arrange transportation between sites for the remains, mourners, pallbearers, clergy, or flowers.
- Plan placement of caskets at funeral sites or place or adjust lights, fixtures, or floral displays.
- Close caskets and lead funeral corteges to churches or burial sites.
- Provide information on funeral service options, products, or merchandise, and maintain a casket display area.
- Arrange for pallbearers or inform pallbearers or honorary groups of their duties.
- Obtain information needed to complete legal documents, such as death certificates or burial permits.
- Consult with families or friends of the deceased to arrange funeral details, such as obituary notice wording, casket selection, or plans for services.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.8 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 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.4 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.3 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 Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 4.67 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.66 |
| S — Social | 4.41 |
| R — Realistic | 3.55 |
| A — Artistic | 1.75 |
| I — Investigative | 1.40 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 89.7 |
| ESTJ | 80.5 |
| ISFJ | 74.3 |
| ESFP | 67.4 |
| ENFJ | 63.2 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Funeral Attendant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/funeral-attendant) — median $35,680
- [Funeral Home Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/funeral-home-manager) — median $78,790
- [Embalmer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/embalmer) — median $58,780
- [Crematory Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/crematory-operator) — median $43,650
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800
- [Coroner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/coroner) — median $80,730
- [Personal Care Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/personal-care-aide) — median $35,800
- [First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-personal-service-workers) — median $48,590
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Patient Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/patient-representative) — median $50,290

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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/mortician-undertaker-and-funeral-arranger