---
title: "Speechwriter"
description: "Writes speeches, remarks and talking points for executives, elected officials, university presidents and other public figures."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/speechwriter"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Speechwriter

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-3043 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-3043.00

Writes speeches, remarks and talking points for executives, elected officials, university presidents and other public figures.

Also advertised as: Executive Speechwriter; Political Speechwriter; Executive Communications Manager; Senior Speechwriter; Remarks Writer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,910 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.98/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $44,310 to $139,870, with the middle half between $58,230 and $101,950
- **Total US employment:** 47,940
- **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:** 11,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 6/100 — 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 47,940 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $44,310 |
| 25th | $58,230 |
| 50th (median) | $76,910 |
| 75th | $101,950 |
| 90th | $139,870 |
| Mean (average) | $86,090 |

### 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 | $129,300 | $117,651 | 1,050 |
| MD | $104,330 | $99,401 | 540 |
| CT | $98,460 | $95,029 | 480 |
| VT | $94,430 | $96,398 | 110 |
| LA | $89,520 | $101,489 | 480 |
| CA | $86,480 | $78,107 | 8,390 |
| WA | $85,700 | $80,084 | 770 |
| MA | $85,260 | $80,619 | 1,350 |
| VA | $85,000 | $84,072 | 1,530 |
| NJ | $81,590 | $74,987 | 1,180 |
| OR | $80,540 | $77,921 | 950 |
| PA | $77,410 | $79,336 | 1,080 |
| CO | $76,830 | $74,555 | 1,300 |
| IN | $75,820 | $81,239 | 450 |
| GA | $74,710 | $77,586 | 820 |

29 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 44 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/speechwriter/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/speechwriter.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 140,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 139,900 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 500 jobs, or -0.3%. Declining: -0.3% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 11,900 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:** Long-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Interview principals and staff to understand speech goals
- Research audiences, events and supporting facts
- Draft speeches, remarks, toasts and testimony
- Revise drafts based on principal and reviewer feedback
- Write talking points, op-eds and social media remarks
- Prepare teleprompter scripts and help rehearse delivery
- Maintain a library of stories, quotes and past remarks

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Writing — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.6 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.

- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Expression — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 3.9 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), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| A — Artistic | 6.68 |
| E — Enterprising | 5.15 |
| I — Investigative | 3.92 |
| C — Conventional | 3.34 |
| S — Social | 2.86 |
| R — Realistic | 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFP | 80.7 |
| ENTP | 77.3 |
| INFP | 76.8 |
| ENFJ | 72.3 |
| INFJ | 69.7 |

Best-fitting types: ENFP, ENTP, INFP. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Writer and Author](https://nuecareer.com/careers/writer-and-author) — median $76,910
- [Poet, Lyricist and Creative Writer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/poet-lyricist-and-creative-writer) — median $76,910
- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Advertising Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-sales-agent) — median $64,820
- [Search Marketing Strategist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/search-marketing-strategist) — median $78,760
- [Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/editor) — median $77,920
- [Advertising and Promotions Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-and-promotions-manager) — median $133,660
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850
- [Producer and Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/producer-and-director) — median $90,360
- [News Analyst, Reporter, and Journalist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/news-analyst-reporter-and-journalist) — median $62,200

## 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/speechwriter