---
title: "Pile Driver Operator"
description: "Operate pile drivers mounted on skids, barges, crawler treads, or locomotive cranes to drive pilings for retaining walls, bulkheads, and foundations of…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/pile-driver-operator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Pile Driver Operator

**Category:** Construction and Extraction · **SOC code:** 47-2072 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 47-2072.00

Operate pile drivers mounted on skids, barges, crawler treads, or locomotive cranes to drive pilings for retaining walls, bulkheads, and foundations of structures such as buildings, bridges, and piers.

Also advertised as: Pile Driver; Pile Driver Operator; Pile Driving Operator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $73,300 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.24/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,790 to $124,600, with the middle half between $58,510 and $106,430
- **Total US employment:** 2,310
- **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:** -5.7% 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 2,310 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,790 |
| 25th | $58,510 |
| 50th (median) | $73,300 |
| 75th | $106,430 |
| 90th | $124,600 |
| Mean (average) | $80,710 |

### Pay by state

The 11 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $120,980 | $114,394 | 130 |
| WA | $111,080 | $103,800 | 50 |
| CA | $110,340 | $99,657 | 480 |
| PA | $93,550 | $95,878 | 90 |
| AK | $78,080 | $76,281 | 190 |
| TX | $66,140 | $68,146 | 280 |
| LA | $61,150 | $69,326 | 180 |
| VA | $59,910 | $59,256 | 150 |
| TN | $54,830 | $59,682 | 30 |
| FL | $51,830 | $50,119 | 270 |
| GA | $47,930 | $49,775 | 50 |

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 2,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 2,200 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 100 jobs, or -5.7%. Declining: -5.7% 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:** 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:** Moderate-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) | 52.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 21.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 18.6% |
| Some College Courses | 7.9% |

## What the work involves

- Drive pilings to provide support for buildings or other structures, using heavy equipment with a pile driver head.
- Conduct pre-operational checks on equipment to ensure proper functioning.
- Clean, lubricate, and refill equipment.
- Move levers and turn valves to activate power hammers, or to raise and lower drophammers that drive piles to required depths.
- Move hand and foot levers of hoisting equipment to position piling leads, hoist piling into leads, and position hammers over pilings.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 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.

- Operation and Control — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.9 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

### Knowledge areas

- Building and Construction — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Control Precision — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Depth Perception — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reaction Time — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.5 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 | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 3.61 |
| I — Investigative | 1.94 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.15 |
| S — Social | 1.02 |
| A — Artistic | 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 | 87.2 |
| ISTP | 76.8 |
| ISFJ | 72.4 |
| ESTJ | 71.5 |
| INTJ | 65.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Operating Engineer and Other Construction Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operating-engineer-and-other-construction-equipment-operator) — median $59,850
- [Industrial Truck and Tractor Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-truck-and-tractor-operator) — median $46,420
- [Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operator, Surface Mining](https://nuecareer.com/careers/excavating-and-loading-machine-and-dragline-operator-surface-mining) — median $57,430
- [Hoist and Winch Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/hoist-and-winch-operator) — median $56,450
- [Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paving-surfacing-and-tamping-equipment-operator) — median $53,340
- [Mobile Heavy Equipment Mechanic, Except Engines](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mobile-heavy-equipment-mechanic) — median $65,510
- [Loading and Moving Machine Operator, Underground Mining](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loading-and-moving-machine-operator-underground-mining) — median $74,500
- [Rigger](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rigger) — median $62,640
- [Construction Laborer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-laborer) — median $47,120
- [Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rail-track-laying-and-maintenance-equipment-operator) — median $70,070

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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

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