---
title: "Parking Attendant"
description: "Park vehicles or issue tickets for customers in a parking lot or garage. May park or tend vehicles in environments such as a car dealership or rental car…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/parking-attendant"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Parking Attendant

**Category:** Transportation and Material Moving · **SOC code:** 53-6021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 53-6021.00

Park vehicles or issue tickets for customers in a parking lot or garage. May park or tend vehicles in environments such as a car dealership or rental car facility. May collect fee.

Also advertised as: Hiker; Parking Attendant; Parking Cashier; Parking Lot Attendant; Parking Ramp Attendant; Valet Attendant; Valet Parker; Valet Parking Attendant.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $35,150 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $16.90/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,040 to $44,550, with the middle half between $29,960 and $37,670
- **Total US employment:** 137,880
- **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:** +2.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 16,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 51/100 — 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 137,880 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,040 |
| 25th | $29,960 |
| 50th (median) | $35,150 |
| 75th | $37,670 |
| 90th | $44,550 |
| Mean (average) | $34,990 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $43,180 | $40,350 | 2,860 |
| CO | $39,330 | $38,165 | 1,390 |
| OR | $38,730 | $37,471 | 1,300 |
| VT | $38,160 | $38,955 | 90 |
| CA | $38,060 | $34,375 | 21,290 |
| MA | $37,360 | $35,326 | 3,330 |
| DC | $37,220 | $33,867 | 1,900 |
| IL | $36,730 | $36,745 | 5,320 |
| AK | $36,580 | $35,737 | 90 |
| NH | $36,010 | $34,570 | 320 |
| NY | $35,920 | $33,284 | 12,440 |
| WY | $35,780 | $38,601 | 110 |
| ND | $35,550 | $39,962 | 170 |
| MN | $35,250 | $35,743 | 1,470 |
| MD | $35,210 | $33,546 | 1,530 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/parking-attendant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/parking-attendant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 139,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 142,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,800 jobs, or +2.0%. Slower than average: 2.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 16,400 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:** 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) | 60.8% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 38.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 1.0% |

## What the work involves

- Explain and calculate parking charges, collect fees from customers, and respond to customer complaints.
- Keep parking areas clean and orderly to ensure that space usage is maximized.
- Provide customer assistance and information, such as giving directions or handling wheelchairs.
- Inspect vehicles to detect any damage.
- Take numbered tags from customers, locate vehicles, and deliver vehicles, or provide customers with instructions for locating vehicles.
- Issue ticket stubs or place numbered tags on windshields, log tags or attach tag to customers' keys, and give customers matching tags for locating parked vehicles.
- Perform cash handling tasks, such as making change, balancing and recording cash drawer, or distributing tips.
- Call emergency responders or the proper authorities and provide motorist assistance, such as giving directions or helping jump start a stalled vehicle.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.3 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.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — 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
- Operation and Control — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Far Vision — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — 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), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.64 |
| C — Conventional | 5.07 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.12 |
| S — Social | 3.03 |
| A — Artistic | 1.15 |
| 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 83.5 |
| ISTJ | 81.6 |
| ISFJ | 81.6 |
| ESFJ | 75.6 |
| ESTP | 59.9 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Shuttle Driver and Chauffeur](https://nuecareer.com/careers/shuttle-driver-and-chauffeur) — median $37,290
- [Parking Enforcement Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/parking-enforcement-worker) — median $46,730
- [Baggage Porter and Bellhop](https://nuecareer.com/careers/baggage-porter-and-bellhop) — median $37,080
- [Taxi Driver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/taxi-driver) — median $42,100
- [Counter and Rental Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/counter-and-rental-clerk) — median $41,300
- [Passenger Attendant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/passenger-attendant) — median $37,720
- [Concierge](https://nuecareer.com/careers/concierge) — median $38,950
- [Locker Room, Coatroom, and Dressing Room Attendant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/locker-room-coatroom-and-dressing-room-attendant) — median $36,300
- [Bus Driver, Transit and Intercity](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bus-driver-transit-and-intercity) — median $59,050
- [Amusement and Recreation Attendant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/amusement-and-recreation-attendant) — median $32,150

## 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/parking-attendant