---
title: "Outdoor Educator"
description: "Teaches backpacking, climbing, paddling, and leadership skills on wilderness courses for students, youth groups, and adults."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/outdoor-educator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Outdoor Educator

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-9032 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-9032.00

Teaches backpacking, climbing, paddling, and leadership skills on wilderness courses for students, youth groups, and adults.

Also advertised as: Wilderness Instructor; Outdoor Leadership Instructor; Field Instructor; Outdoor Program Coordinator; Environmental Educator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $36,560 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $17.58/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,600 to $50,410, with the middle half between $31,780 and $43,470
- **Total US employment:** 331,490
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.3% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 67,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 52/100 — 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 331,490 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,600 |
| 25th | $31,780 |
| 50th (median) | $36,560 |
| 75th | $43,470 |
| 90th | $50,410 |
| Mean (average) | $38,520 |

### 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 | $46,460 | $42,274 | 470 |
| WA | $44,890 | $41,948 | 6,380 |
| SD | $42,270 | $47,716 | 650 |
| HI | $41,000 | $37,289 | 1,590 |
| CA | $39,780 | $35,928 | 48,560 |
| OR | $39,610 | $38,322 | 4,640 |
| CO | $38,820 | $37,670 | 6,100 |
| MA | $38,540 | $36,442 | 11,280 |
| NY | $38,040 | $35,248 | 24,790 |
| AK | $37,510 | $36,646 | 630 |
| MN | $37,510 | $38,034 | 7,940 |
| ME | $37,450 | $38,588 | 1,260 |
| VT | $37,450 | $38,231 | 840 |
| ND | $37,310 | $41,941 | 730 |
| MD | $37,200 | $35,442 | 4,350 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/outdoor-educator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/outdoor-educator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 346,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 361,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 15,000 jobs, or +4.3%. About as fast as average: 4.3% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 67,000 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 62.0% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 25.5% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 8.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 3.2% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 0.7% |
| Some College Courses | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Lead groups on backpacking, climbing, or paddling courses
- Teach navigation, camping, and Leave No Trace skills
- Facilitate leadership and teamwork lessons
- Plan routes and manage risk in changing conditions
- Provide wilderness first aid in the field
- Supervise students and handle group dynamics
- Maintain equipment and complete incident reports

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.1 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- 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
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.2 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
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — 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), Enterprising (E), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 5.23 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.45 |
| R — Realistic | 4.25 |
| A — Artistic | 3.58 |
| C — Conventional | 3.46 |
| I — Investigative | 1.98 |

### 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 | 82.8 |
| ESFP | 80.6 |
| ENFJ | 72.8 |
| ENFP | 61.5 |
| ISFJ | 61.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ESFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Recreation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreation-worker) — median $36,560
- [Recreational Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreational-therapist) — median $61,960
- [Social and Community Service Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-community-service-manager) — median $80,390
- [Entertainment and Recreation Manager, Except Gambling](https://nuecareer.com/careers/entertainment-and-recreation-manager) — median $79,520
- [Rehabilitation Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rehabilitation-counselor) — median $46,850
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930
- [First-Line Supervisor of Personal Service Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-personal-service-workers) — median $48,590
- [Residential Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/residential-advisor) — median $42,240
- [Fitness and Wellness Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fitness-and-wellness-coordinator) — median $69,770

## 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/outdoor-educator