---
title: "Special Assets Officer"
description: "Takes over troubled business loans at a bank and works out restructurings, recoveries or liquidations to limit losses."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-assets-officer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Special Assets Officer

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2072 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2072.00

Takes over troubled business loans at a bank and works out restructurings, recoveries or liquidations to limit losses.

Also advertised as: Loan Workout Officer; Special Assets Manager; Workout Specialist; Problem Loan Officer; Credit Workout Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,690 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.87/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $39,430 to $153,180, with the middle half between $52,730 and $104,080
- **Total US employment:** 274,330
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +1.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 17,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 20/100 — 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 274,330 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $39,430 |
| 25th | $52,730 |
| 50th (median) | $76,690 |
| 75th | $104,080 |
| 90th | $153,180 |
| Mean (average) | $87,790 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MA | $101,600 | $96,069 | 4,470 |
| CT | $95,730 | $92,395 | 2,220 |
| NY | $95,710 | $88,685 | 10,840 |
| MN | $95,170 | $96,501 | 6,430 |
| CO | $94,520 | $91,721 | 3,230 |
| OR | $94,440 | $91,369 | 4,220 |
| NJ | $92,920 | $85,400 | 6,200 |
| DC | $92,890 | $84,522 | 370 |
| VT | $88,710 | $90,559 | 350 |
| KS | $86,970 | $96,560 | 3,540 |
| ND | $84,650 | $95,156 | 1,370 |
| IA | $83,670 | $95,337 | 2,840 |
| DE | $83,130 | $83,290 | 1,420 |
| ME | $81,900 | $84,389 | 1,060 |
| CA | $81,770 | $73,853 | 25,790 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-assets-officer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/special-assets-officer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 283,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 286,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,100 jobs, or +1.1%. Slower than average: 1.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 17,100 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:** Less than 5 years.
- **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 | 68.7% |
| Some College Courses | 12.8% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 11.2% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 6.1% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 1.1% |

## What the work involves

- Analyze troubled borrowers' finances and collateral
- Develop workout strategies for problem loans
- Negotiate loan modifications and forbearance agreements
- Coordinate with attorneys on foreclosure and bankruptcy
- Order and review collateral appraisals
- Report problem loan status to credit committees
- Oversee sale of loans or repossessed assets

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 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 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 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 Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.08 |
| E — Enterprising | 5.31 |
| S — Social | 3.65 |
| I — Investigative | 3.09 |
| R — Realistic | 1.43 |
| 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 81.4 |
| ESFJ | 80.0 |
| ISFJ | 68.5 |
| ENTJ | 65.4 |
| ISTJ | 65.2 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Loan Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-officer) — median $76,690
- [Loan Interviewer and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-interviewer-and-clerk) — median $50,020
- [Credit Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-counselor) — median $52,230
- [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510
- [Credit Authorizer, Checker, and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-authorizer-checker-and-clerk) — median $50,080
- [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070
- [Security, Commodity, and Financial Services Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/security-commodity-and-financial-services-sales-agent) — median $78,660
- [Financial Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-manager) — median $166,570
- [Financial and Investment Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-and-investment-analyst) — median $102,740
- [New Accounts Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/new-accounts-clerk) — median $47,670

## 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/special-assets-officer