---
title: "Special Education Teacher, Middle School"
description: "Teach academic, social, and life skills to middle school students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Includes teachers who specialize…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-middle-school"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Special Education Teacher, Middle School

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-2057 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-2057.00

Teach academic, social, and life skills to middle school students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Includes teachers who specialize and work with students who are blind or have visual impairments; students who are deaf or have hearing impairments; and students with intellectual disabilities.

Also advertised as: ED SPED Teacher (Emotional Disabilities Special Education Teacher); Interrelated SPED Teacher (Interrelated Special Education Teacher); Learning Disabilities Teacher (LD Teacher); Learning Support Teacher; Middle School Resource Teacher; MS SPED Teacher (Middle School Special Education Teacher); Self-Contained SPED Teacher (Self-Contained Special Education Teacher); SLD Teacher (Specific Learning Disability Teacher).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $66,810 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $49,420 to $102,510, with the middle half between $60,000 and $82,800
- **Total US employment:** 95,200
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -0.4% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 45/100 — 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 95,200 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $49,420 |
| 25th | $60,000 |
| 50th (median) | $66,810 |
| 75th | $82,800 |
| 90th | $102,510 |
| Mean (average) | $73,780 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $101,530 | $91,700 | 4,860 |
| WA | $99,520 | $92,998 | 1,550 |
| RI | $93,970 | $91,875 | 380 |
| NY | $93,820 | $86,934 | 7,870 |
| CT | $92,900 | $89,663 | 1,260 |
| MA | $84,550 | $79,947 | 3,110 |
| AK | $81,000 | $79,133 | 200 |
| DC | $79,170 | $72,038 | 520 |
| NJ | $79,110 | $72,708 | 5,660 |
| UT | $78,920 | $79,827 | 690 |
| OR | $78,360 | $75,812 | 590 |
| DE | $77,420 | $77,569 | Not published by BLS |
| PA | $77,040 | $78,957 | 3,710 |
| MD | $76,410 | $72,800 | 1,540 |
| MI | $76,040 | $79,030 | 1,410 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-middle-school/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/special-education-teacher-middle-school.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 94,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 94,400 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 400 jobs, or -0.4%. Declining: -0.4% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,000 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 | 82.5% |
| Master's Degree | 15.5% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 1.3% |
| First Professional Degree | 0.4% |
| Some College Courses | 0.3% |

## What the work involves

- Establish and enforce rules for behavior and policies and procedures to maintain order among students.
- Prepare materials and classrooms for class activities.
- Teach students personal development skills, such as goal setting, independence, and self-advocacy.
- Attend staff meetings and serve on committees, as required.
- Attend professional meetings, educational conferences, and teacher training workshops to maintain and improve professional competence.
- Guide and counsel students with adjustments, academic problems, or special academic interests.
- Use computers, audio-visual aids, and other equipment and materials to supplement presentations.
- Prepare, administer, and grade tests and assignments to evaluate students' progress.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Learning Strategies — 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
- Writing — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 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.

- Instructing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 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 Social (S), Artistic (A), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 7.00 |
| A — Artistic | 3.96 |
| I — Investigative | 3.92 |
| C — Conventional | 3.30 |
| R — Realistic | 2.32 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.80 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFP | 69.5 |
| INFJ | 68.0 |
| INFP | 67.5 |
| ENFJ | 66.8 |
| ESFP | 66.2 |

Best-fitting types: ENFP, INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, ESFP, ISFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Special Education Teacher, Kindergarten](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-kindergarten) — median $67,170
- [Special Education Teacher, Elementary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-elementary-school) — median $67,170
- [Special Education Teacher, Secondary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-secondary-school) — median $74,260
- [Special Education Teacher, Preschool](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-preschool) — median $64,830
- [Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/adult-basic-education-adult-secondary-education-and-english-as-a-second-language-instructor) — median $61,540
- [Elementary School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/elementary-school-teacher) — median $63,970
- [Middle School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/middle-school-teacher) — median $64,370
- [High School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/high-school-teacher) — median $72,040
- [Kindergarten Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/kindergarten-teacher) — median $62,680
- [Teaching Assistant, Special Education](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-special-education) — median $37,010

## 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

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/special-education-teacher-middle-school