---
title: "Surety Underwriter"
description: "Decides whether an insurer will guarantee a contractor's or company's obligations through a surety bond, and on what terms."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/surety-underwriter"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Surety Underwriter

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2053 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2053.00

Decides whether an insurer will guarantee a contractor's or company's obligations through a surety bond, and on what terms.

Also advertised as: Contract Surety Underwriter; Commercial Surety Underwriter; Bond Underwriter; Surety Account Manager; Surety Underwriting Manager.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $81,370 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $39.12/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $55,530 to $145,160, with the middle half between $64,620 and $110,390
- **Total US employment:** 105,420
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 12/100 — 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 105,420 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $55,530 |
| 25th | $64,620 |
| 50th (median) | $81,370 |
| 75th | $110,390 |
| 90th | $145,160 |
| Mean (average) | $93,700 |

### 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 | $106,640 | $100,835 | 2,890 |
| NH | $103,940 | $99,784 | 270 |
| NV | $101,440 | $101,461 | 480 |
| CT | $100,690 | $97,182 | 2,010 |
| CO | $100,640 | $97,659 | 2,040 |
| WA | $99,400 | $92,886 | 1,740 |
| NY | $97,450 | $90,298 | 6,900 |
| WI | $97,370 | $103,481 | 3,110 |
| NJ | $96,220 | $88,433 | 3,150 |
| ME | $95,510 | $98,413 | 520 |
| CA | $95,320 | $86,091 | 6,580 |
| MD | $92,120 | $87,768 | 1,310 |
| IL | $89,620 | $89,658 | Not published by BLS |
| GA | $85,980 | $89,290 | 7,160 |
| RI | $84,720 | $82,831 | 250 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/surety-underwriter/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/surety-underwriter.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 125,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 120,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 4,800 jobs, or -3.8%. Declining: -3.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,800 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:** 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 | 70.0% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 10.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 10.0% |
| Some College Courses | 6.7% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 3.3% |

## What the work involves

- Analyze contractor financial statements and work in progress
- Set bonding limits and terms for accounts
- Review bond requests for specific projects
- Meet contractors and surety agents to assess management
- Monitor account performance and project backlogs
- Work with claims staff on troubled projects
- Document underwriting decisions

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — 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 3.6 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
- Mathematics — 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 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.5 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), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.16 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.82 |
| I — Investigative | 4.04 |
| S — Social | 2.84 |
| R — Realistic | 1.72 |
| 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 |
| ISTJ | 74.3 |
| ESFJ | 71.5 |
| ISFJ | 68.7 |
| ENTJ | 66.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Insurance Underwriter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-underwriter) — median $81,370
- [Financial Risk Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-risk-specialist) — median $117,330
- [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510
- [Loan Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-officer) — median $76,690
- [Insurance Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-sales-agent) — median $62,280
- [Claims Adjuster, Examiner, and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator) — median $78,000
- [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
- [Loan Interviewer and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-interviewer-and-clerk) — median $50,020
- [Financial and Investment Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-and-investment-analyst) — median $102,740

## 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/surety-underwriter