---
title: "Paperhanger"
description: "Cover interior walls or ceilings of rooms with decorative wallpaper or fabric, or attach advertising posters on surfaces such as walls and billboards.…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/paperhanger"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Paperhanger

**Category:** Construction and Extraction · **SOC code:** 47-2142 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 47-2142.00

Cover interior walls or ceilings of rooms with decorative wallpaper or fabric, or attach advertising posters on surfaces such as walls and billboards. May remove old materials or prepare surfaces to be papered.

Also advertised as: Bill Board Poster; Bill Poster; Billposter; Hanger; Installer; Paper Hanger; Vinyl Hanger; Wall Covering Installer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $52,140 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $25.07/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $36,020 to $69,050, with the middle half between $44,890 and $60,180
- **Total US employment:** 1,570
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.3% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 200 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 1,570 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $36,020 |
| 25th | $44,890 |
| 50th (median) | $52,140 |
| 75th | $60,180 |
| 90th | $69,050 |
| Mean (average) | $53,730 |

### Pay by state

The 13 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $62,790 | $56,711 | 130 |
| PA | $61,800 | $63,338 | 30 |
| NY | $60,230 | $55,809 | 300 |
| MO | $59,560 | $65,582 | Not published by BLS |
| IN | $54,810 | $58,728 | 70 |
| WI | $51,500 | $54,732 | Not published by BLS |
| FL | $48,780 | $47,170 | 30 |
| NC | $48,590 | $51,513 | 100 |
| CO | $48,180 | $46,753 | 130 |
| OH | $47,830 | $51,555 | 70 |
| SC | $46,800 | $49,921 | 50 |
| WA | $46,270 | $43,238 | Not published by BLS |
| TN | $46,010 | $50,082 | 40 |

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 2,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 2,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 100 jobs, or +4.3%. About as fast as average: 4.3% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 200 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:** No formal educational credential (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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 54.1% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 24.1% |
| Some College Courses | 18.5% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 3.4% |

## What the work involves

- Place strips or sections of paper on surfaces, aligning section edges and patterns.
- Smooth strips or sections of paper with brushes or rollers to remove wrinkles and bubbles and to smooth joints.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- 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 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.0 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.

- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Extent Flexibility — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Finger Dexterity — 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 Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.86 |
| C — Conventional | 3.90 |
| A — Artistic | 2.97 |
| S — Social | 1.58 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.14 |
| I — Investigative | 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 | 77.5 |
| ISFJ | 71.6 |
| ISTP | 68.7 |
| ESTJ | 63.7 |
| ISFP | 59.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Floor Layer, Except Carpet, Wood, and Hard Tiles](https://nuecareer.com/careers/floor-layer) — median $56,460
- [Carpet Installer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/carpet-installer) — median $50,340
- [Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/drywall-and-ceiling-tile-installer) — median $58,930
- [Painter, Construction and Maintenance](https://nuecareer.com/careers/painter-construction-and-maintenance) — median $49,400
- [Painting, Coating, and Decorating Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/painting-coating-and-decorating-worker) — median $41,600
- [Tile and Stone Setter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tile-and-stone-setter) — median $55,690
- [Insulation Worker, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insulation-worker-floor-ceiling-and-wall) — median $49,120
- [Helpers--Painter, Paperhanger, Plasterer, and Stucco Mason](https://nuecareer.com/careers/helpers-painter-paperhanger-plasterer-and-stucco-mason) — median $40,470
- [Furniture Finisher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/furniture-finisher) — median $44,540
- [Sheet Metal Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sheet-metal-worker) — median $61,800

## 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/paperhanger