---
title: "Special Effects Artist and Animator"
description: "Create special effects or animations using film, video, computers, or other electronic tools and media for use in products, such as computer games…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-effects-artist-and-animator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Special Effects Artist and Animator

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-1014 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-1014.00

Create special effects or animations using film, video, computers, or other electronic tools and media for use in products, such as computer games, movies, music videos, and commercials.

Also advertised as: 3D Animator (Three-Dimensional Animator); 3D Artist (Three-Dimensional Artist); Animator; Artist; Digital Artist; Graphic Artist; Motion Graphics Artist; Multimedia Producer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $102,030 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $49.06/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $58,600 to $177,110, with the middle half between $75,490 and $139,130
- **Total US employment:** 19,970
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -0.3% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 29/100 — 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 19,970 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $58,600 |
| 25th | $75,490 |
| 50th (median) | $102,030 |
| 75th | $139,130 |
| 90th | $177,110 |
| Mean (average) | $112,870 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $133,480 | $124,733 | 1,130 |
| CA | $130,540 | $117,901 | 7,410 |
| NV | $97,350 | $97,370 | 370 |
| NY | $96,770 | $89,667 | 1,540 |
| CO | $91,290 | $88,586 | 210 |
| AZ | $89,650 | $89,047 | 190 |
| NC | $88,350 | $93,665 | 370 |
| UT | $88,210 | $89,224 | 320 |
| MI | $86,630 | $90,036 | 230 |
| FL | $85,870 | $83,035 | 1,530 |
| MD | $85,830 | $81,775 | 170 |
| TN | $83,080 | $90,432 | 90 |
| VA | $81,510 | $80,620 | 380 |
| GA | $81,390 | $84,523 | 350 |
| IL | $81,180 | $81,214 | 630 |

16 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 31 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-effects-artist-and-animator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/special-effects-artist-and-animator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 51,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 51,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 100 jobs, or -0.3%. Declining: -0.3% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,200 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:** 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 | 52.8% |
| Some College Courses | 39.7% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 5.4% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 1.7% |
| Master's Degree | 0.3% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 0.1% |

## What the work involves

- Design complex graphics and animation, using independent judgment, creativity, and computer equipment.
- Create basic designs, drawings, and illustrations for product labels, cartons, direct mail, or television.
- Create two-dimensional and three-dimensional images depicting objects in motion or illustrating a process, using computer animation or modeling programs.
- Apply story development, directing, cinematography, and editing to animation to create storyboards that show the flow of the animation and map out key scenes and characters.
- Make objects or characters appear lifelike by manipulating light, color, texture, shadow, and transparency, or manipulating static images to give the illusion of motion.
- Participate in design and production of multimedia campaigns, handling budgeting and scheduling, and assisting with such responsibilities as production coordination, background design, and progress tracking.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 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
- Systems Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 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
- Visualization — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 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 Artistic (A), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| A — Artistic | 7.00 |
| R — Realistic | 3.71 |
| C — Conventional | 3.13 |
| I — Investigative | 2.77 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.62 |
| S — Social | 2.18 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INFP | 78.0 |
| INTP | 73.9 |
| INFJ | 68.8 |
| ENTP | 65.6 |
| ENFP | 65.1 |

Best-fitting types: INFP, INTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Graphic Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/graphic-designer) — median $62,960
- [Film and Video Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/film-and-video-editor) — median $75,420
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850
- [Video Game Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/video-game-designer) — median $104,000
- [Producer and Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/producer-and-director) — median $90,360
- [Desktop Publisher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/desktop-publisher) — median $55,290
- [Web Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/web-designer) — median $104,000
- [Photographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photographer) — median $44,660
- [Media Technical Directors/Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-technical-directors-manager) — median $90,360
- [Commercial and Industrial Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-and-industrial-designer) — median $83,910

## 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-effects-artist-and-animator