---
title: "Security, Commodity, and Financial Services Sales Agent"
description: "Buy and sell securities or commodities in investment and trading firms, or provide financial services to businesses and individuals. May advise customers…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-commodity-and-financial-services-sales-agent"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Security, Commodity, and Financial Services Sales Agent

**Category:** Sales and Related · **SOC code:** 41-3031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 41-3031.00

Buy and sell securities or commodities in investment and trading firms, or provide financial services to businesses and individuals. May advise customers about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, commodities, and market conditions.

Also advertised as: Broker; Commodities Broker; Equity Trader; Financial Advisor; Financial Consultant; Investment Representative; Investments Advisor; Investments Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $78,660 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $37.82/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,040 to $212,880, with the middle half between $56,540 and $129,950
- **Total US employment:** 489,570
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.3% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 38,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 19/100 — 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 489,570 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,040 |
| 25th | $56,540 |
| 50th (median) | $78,660 |
| 75th | $129,950 |
| 90th | $212,880 |
| Mean (average) | $109,150 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $168,340 | $155,984 | 55,630 |
| MA | $100,310 | $94,850 | 14,510 |
| IL | $99,840 | $99,882 | 27,920 |
| CT | $98,560 | $95,126 | 5,730 |
| VT | $88,280 | $90,120 | 240 |
| SD | $86,780 | $97,961 | 730 |
| DE | $83,750 | $83,911 | 2,300 |
| MN | $83,350 | $84,515 | 8,820 |
| NE | $82,560 | $91,628 | 2,150 |
| NJ | $82,420 | $75,750 | 15,230 |
| CA | $79,730 | $72,010 | 55,860 |
| NH | $78,930 | $75,774 | 1,530 |
| MO | $78,500 | $86,438 | 8,770 |
| TX | $78,470 | $80,849 | 41,640 |
| OR | $76,710 | $74,216 | 2,900 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-commodity-and-financial-services-sales-agent/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/security-commodity-and-financial-services-sales-agent.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 514,500 in the 2024–2034 base year to 531,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 17,100 jobs, or +3.3%. About as fast as average: 3.3% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 38,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## 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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 55.3% |
| High School Diploma | 26.8% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 6.0% |
| Some College Courses | 5.8% |
| Master's Degree | 3.8% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 1.1% |

## What the work involves

- Monitor markets or positions.
- Determine customers' financial services needs and prepare proposals to sell services that address these needs.
- Contact prospective customers to present information and explain available services.
- Discuss financial options with clients and keep them informed about transactions.
- Interview clients to determine clients' assets, liabilities, cash flow, insurance coverage, tax status, or financial objectives.
- Report all positions or trading results.
- Agree on buying or selling prices at optimal levels for clients.
- Develop financial plans, based on analysis of clients' financial status.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — 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.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — 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 Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.08 |
| C — Conventional | 5.27 |
| S — Social | 3.07 |
| I — Investigative | 2.53 |
| A — Artistic | 1.29 |
| R — Realistic | 1.26 |

### 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 | 77.9 |
| ESFJ | 74.3 |
| ENTJ | 68.6 |
| ENFJ | 62.9 |
| ESTP | 58.1 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Financial and Investment Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-and-investment-analyst) — median $102,740
- [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070
- [Investment Fund Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/investment-fund-manager) — median $166,570
- [Brokerage Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/brokerage-clerk) — median $65,750
- [Financial Risk Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-risk-specialist) — median $117,330
- [Loan Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-officer) — median $76,690
- [New Accounts Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/new-accounts-clerk) — median $47,670
- [Wholesale and Retail Buyer, Except Farm Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/wholesale-and-retail-buyer) — median $77,710
- [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510
- [Real Estate Broker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/real-estate-broker) — median $73,220

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 30.3 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/security-commodity-and-financial-services-sales-agent