---
title: "Shampooer"
description: "Shampoo and rinse customers' hair."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/shampooer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Shampooer

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-5093 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-5093.00

Shampoo and rinse customers' hair.

Also advertised as: Hair Assistant; Shampoo Assistant; Shampoo Person; Shampoo Technician; Shampooer; Stylist Assistant.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $32,600 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $15.67/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $23,110 to $38,240, with the middle half between $28,550 and $35,550
- **Total US employment:** 8,070
- **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:** +5.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 57/100 — 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 8,070 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $23,110 |
| 25th | $28,550 |
| 50th (median) | $32,600 |
| 75th | $35,550 |
| 90th | $38,240 |
| Mean (average) | $31,980 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $38,870 | $35,368 | 210 |
| CA | $37,080 | $33,490 | Not published by BLS |
| NY | $37,070 | $34,349 | 1,210 |
| MD | $34,900 | $33,251 | 500 |
| MA | $34,840 | $32,943 | Not published by BLS |
| IL | $34,190 | $34,204 | 240 |
| CT | $34,010 | $32,825 | Not published by BLS |
| NJ | $33,180 | $30,495 | 690 |
| DE | $32,150 | $32,212 | 200 |
| TX | $31,200 | $32,146 | 840 |
| OK | $29,420 | $33,492 | 70 |
| LA | $29,160 | $33,059 | Not published by BLS |
| VA | $28,920 | $28,604 | 350 |
| FL | $28,550 | $27,607 | 550 |
| GA | $27,560 | $28,621 | 690 |

5 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 20 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/shampooer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/shampooer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 15,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 16,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 900 jobs, or +5.6%. Faster than average: 5.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,200 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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 67.6% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 18.4% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 13.1% |
| Some College Courses | 1.1% |

## What the work involves

- Massage, shampoo, and condition patron's hair and scalp to clean them and remove excess oil.
- Advise patrons with chronic or potentially contagious scalp conditions to seek medical treatment.
- Treat scalp conditions and hair loss, using specialized lotions, shampoos, or equipment such as infrared lamps or vibrating equipment.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 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
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 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 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.0 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), Social (S), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.53 |
| S — Social | 3.75 |
| C — Conventional | 3.37 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.47 |
| A — Artistic | 1.56 |
| I — Investigative | 1.35 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 77.5 |
| ESFJ | 71.8 |
| ESTJ | 65.1 |
| ISTJ | 64.0 |
| ISFP | 64.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Skincare Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/skincare-specialist) — median $45,330
- [Hairstylist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/hairstylist) — median $35,790
- [Massage Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/massage-therapist) — median $58,450
- [Barber](https://nuecareer.com/careers/barber) — median $38,210
- [Manicurist and Pedicurist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/manicurist-and-pedicurist) — median $35,760
- [Makeup Artist, Theatrical and Performance](https://nuecareer.com/careers/makeup-artist-theatrical-and-performance) — median $97,150
- [Physical Therapist Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-aide) — median $35,240
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800
- [Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/laundry-and-dry-cleaning-worker) — median $34,890
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260

## 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/shampooer