---
title: "Pickleball Professional"
description: "Teaches pickleball lessons and clinics and runs programs, leagues and tournaments at clubs, resorts and community facilities."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/pickleball-professional"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Pickleball Professional

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-2022 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-2022.00

Teaches pickleball lessons and clinics and runs programs, leagues and tournaments at clubs, resorts and community facilities.

Also advertised as: Pickleball Pro; Pickleball Teaching Professional; Pickleball Instructor; Pickleball Coach; Director of Pickleball.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $47,320 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $28,790 to $98,860, with the middle half between $35,330 and $64,710
- **Total US employment:** 248,950
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 36,400 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 248,950 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $28,790 |
| 25th | $35,330 |
| 50th (median) | $47,320 |
| 75th | $64,710 |
| 90th | $98,860 |
| Mean (average) | $60,160 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NJ | $76,700 | $70,493 | 5,670 |
| DC | $65,360 | $59,472 | 630 |
| LA | $60,960 | $69,110 | 2,550 |
| VT | $59,990 | $61,241 | 630 |
| NY | $59,920 | $55,522 | 11,220 |
| HI | $55,860 | $50,804 | 760 |
| MA | $55,130 | $52,129 | 6,310 |
| CT | $54,790 | $52,881 | 4,070 |
| RI | $53,630 | $52,434 | 1,170 |
| AZ | $53,130 | $52,773 | 4,120 |
| WV | $52,050 | $58,158 | 910 |
| NH | $51,490 | $49,431 | 870 |
| NV | $51,020 | $51,031 | 2,390 |
| MD | $50,590 | $48,200 | 3,960 |
| NM | $49,980 | $54,201 | 590 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/pickleball-professional/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/pickleball-professional.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 298,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 316,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 18,100 jobs, or +6.1%. Faster than average: 6.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 36,400 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:** Bachelor's degree (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:** None.

### 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 | 48.9% |
| Master's Degree | 19.4% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 17.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 8.9% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 3.7% |
| Doctoral Degree | 1.8% |

## What the work involves

- Teach private and group pickleball lessons
- Run clinics, drills and skill-based programs
- Organize leagues, round robins and tournaments
- Evaluate player skill levels and ratings
- Manage court schedules and program calendars
- Recommend paddles and gear to players
- Recruit members and promote club programs

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 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.

- Instructing — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Education and Training — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.9 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 | 5.52 |
| E — Enterprising | 5.15 |
| R — Realistic | 4.60 |
| C — Conventional | 3.45 |
| A — Artistic | 2.43 |
| I — Investigative | 2.15 |

### 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 | 81.7 |
| ESFP | 75.2 |
| ESTJ | 69.1 |
| ENFJ | 64.5 |
| ISFJ | 61.5 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Coach and Scout](https://nuecareer.com/careers/coach-and-scout) — median $47,320
- [Referee](https://nuecareer.com/careers/referee) — median $40,710
- [Professional Athlete](https://nuecareer.com/careers/professional-athlete) — median $66,710
- [Exercise Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/exercise-trainer-and-group-fitness-instructor) — median $47,160
- [Athletic Trainer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/athletic-trainer) — median $62,520
- [Self-Enrichment Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/self-enrichment-teacher) — median $46,800
- [Training and Development Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist) — median $69,280
- [Fitness and Wellness Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fitness-and-wellness-coordinator) — median $69,770
- [Recreation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreation-worker) — median $36,560
- [Training and Development Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-manager) — median $133,000

## 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/pickleball-professional