---
title: "Office Machine Operator, Except Computer"
description: "Operate one or more of a variety of office machines, such as photocopying, photographic, and duplicating machines, or other office machines."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-machine-operator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Office Machine Operator, Except Computer

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-9071 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-9071.00

Operate one or more of a variety of office machines, such as photocopying, photographic, and duplicating machines, or other office machines.

Also advertised as: Copy Center Operator; Copy Machine Operator; Copy Technician; Graphics Production Specialist; Key Operator; Machine Operator; Printing Services Coordinator; Reprographics Technician.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $40,960 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $19.69/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $31,750 to $57,960, with the middle half between $36,090 and $47,910
- **Total US employment:** 25,130
- **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:** -14.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 41/100 — 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 25,130 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $31,750 |
| 25th | $36,090 |
| 50th (median) | $40,960 |
| 75th | $47,910 |
| 90th | $57,960 |
| Mean (average) | $43,220 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AK | $56,010 | $54,719 | 70 |
| VT | $48,380 | $49,389 | 60 |
| MA | $47,470 | $44,886 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $47,150 | $42,585 | 2,320 |
| CO | $46,860 | $45,472 | 250 |
| WA | $46,290 | $43,256 | 340 |
| MN | $45,890 | $46,532 | 630 |
| NY | $45,740 | $42,383 | 3,780 |
| RI | $45,560 | $44,544 | 70 |
| NV | $45,330 | $45,340 | 70 |
| ME | $45,240 | $46,615 | 60 |
| NC | $44,480 | $47,156 | 930 |
| IL | $44,360 | $44,379 | 1,150 |
| MT | $44,260 | $46,764 | 120 |
| WV | $43,140 | $48,203 | 80 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-machine-operator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/office-machine-operator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 25,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 21,900 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 3,800 jobs, or -14.9%. Declining: -14.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,100 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:** 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 or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 67.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 17.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 9.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 5.8% |

## What the work involves

- Sort, assemble, and proof completed work.
- Operate office machines such as high speed business photocopiers, readers, scanners, addressing machines, stencil-cutting machines, microfilm readers or printers, folding and inserting machines, bursters, and binder machines.
- Set up and adjust machines, regulating factors such as speed, ink flow, focus, and number of copies.
- Load machines with materials such as blank paper or film.
- Read job orders to determine the type of work to be done, the quantities to be produced, and the materials needed.
- Operate auxiliary machines such as collators, pad and tablet making machines, staplers, and paper punching, folding, cutting, and perforating machines.
- Maintain stock of supplies, and requisition any needed items.
- Monitor machine operation, and make adjustments as necessary to ensure proper operation.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.5 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 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.0 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), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.57 |
| R — Realistic | 4.55 |
| I — Investigative | 2.13 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.06 |
| S — Social | 1.68 |
| A — Artistic | 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 | 91.3 |
| ISFJ | 83.0 |
| ESTJ | 82.0 |
| ESFJ | 65.8 |
| ISTP | 63.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Prepress Technician and Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prepress-technician-and-worker) — median $48,690
- [Printing Press Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/printing-press-operator) — median $45,780
- [Data Entry Keyer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-entry-keyer) — median $41,340
- [Photographic Process Worker and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photographic-process-worker-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $40,610
- [Print Binding and Finishing Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/print-binding-and-finishing-worker) — median $42,290
- [Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-automated-teller-and-office-machine-repairer) — median $47,810
- [Postal Service Mail Sorter, Processor, and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/postal-service-mail-sorter-processor-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $58,470
- [Paper Goods Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paper-goods-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $50,270
- [Coin, Vending, and Amusement Machine Servicer and Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/coin-vending-and-amusement-machine-servicer-and-repairer) — median $47,450
- [Mail Clerk and Mail Machine Operator, Except Postal Service](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mail-clerk-and-mail-machine-operator) — median $39,280

## 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/office-machine-operator