---
title: "Nanny"
description: "Care for children in private households and provide support and expertise to parents in satisfying children's physical, emotional, intellectual, and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/nanny"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Nanny

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-9011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-9011.01

Care for children in private households and provide support and expertise to parents in satisfying children's physical, emotional, intellectual, and social needs. Duties may include meal planning and preparation, laundry and clothing care, organization of play activities and outings, discipline, intellectual stimulation, language activities, and transportation.

Also advertised as: Family Assistant; Family Manager; Governess; House Manager; Household Manager; Nanny; Special Needs Nanny; Travel Nanny.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $34,980 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $16.82/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $24,260 to $46,010, with the middle half between $29,360 and $38,570
- **Total US employment:** 518,910
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -2.9% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 160,200 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 518,910 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $24,260 |
| 25th | $29,360 |
| 50th (median) | $34,980 |
| 75th | $38,570 |
| 90th | $46,010 |
| Mean (average) | $35,030 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $47,340 | $43,075 | 1,350 |
| WA | $41,680 | $38,949 | 4,340 |
| MA | $40,900 | $38,674 | 13,140 |
| CO | $40,750 | $39,543 | 13,310 |
| CA | $40,020 | $36,145 | 52,780 |
| OR | $38,650 | $37,393 | 5,240 |
| VT | $38,030 | $38,823 | Not published by BLS |
| NY | $37,590 | $34,831 | 44,020 |
| NH | $37,080 | $35,597 | 2,820 |
| HI | $37,030 | $33,679 | 1,870 |
| RI | $36,940 | $36,117 | 1,800 |
| CT | $36,660 | $35,383 | 12,020 |
| NJ | $36,390 | $33,445 | 25,070 |
| ME | $36,350 | $37,455 | 4,990 |
| AK | $36,200 | $35,366 | 1,340 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/nanny/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nanny.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 991,600 in the 2024–2034 base year to 962,400 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 29,200 jobs, or -2.9%. Declining: -2.9% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 160,200 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (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:** Short-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 | 60.0% |
| Some College Courses | 16.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 8.0% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 8.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 4.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Instruct children in safe behavior, such as seeking adult assistance when crossing the street and avoiding contact with unsafe objects.
- Remove hazards and develop appropriate boundaries and rules to create a safe environment for children.
- Instruct and assist children in the development of health and personal habits, such as eating, resting, and toilet behavior.
- Teach and perform age-appropriate activities, such as lap play, reading, and arts and crafts, to encourage intellectual development of children.
- Help prepare and serve nutritionally balanced meals and snacks for children.
- Model appropriate social behaviors and encourage concern for others to cultivate development of interpersonal relationships and communication skills.
- Organize and conduct age-appropriate recreational activities, such as games, arts and crafts, sports, walks, and play dates.
- Observe children's behavior for irregularities, take temperature, transport children to doctor, or administer medications, as directed, to maintain children's health.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 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
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 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 Social (S), Artistic (A), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.30 |
| A — Artistic | 3.50 |
| C — Conventional | 3.34 |
| R — Realistic | 2.91 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.68 |
| I — Investigative | 2.19 |

### 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 | 75.3 |
| ESFP | 74.9 |
| ENFJ | 74.6 |
| ENFP | 65.5 |
| ISFJ | 64.1 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESFP, ENFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Childcare Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/childcare-worker) — median $34,980
- [Personal Care Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/personal-care-aide) — median $35,800
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800
- [Preschool Teacher, Except Special Education](https://nuecareer.com/careers/preschool-teacher) — median $38,140
- [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) — median $59,550
- [Education and Childcare Administrator, Preschool and Daycare](https://nuecareer.com/careers/education-and-childcare-administrator-preschool-and-daycare) — median $59,300
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930
- [Occupational Therapy Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-assistant) — median $72,300
- [Residential Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/residential-advisor) — median $42,240

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 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

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nanny