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Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers Career, Salary and Skills

Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers have a BLS-reported national median annual wage of $41,600 based on the 2025 OEWS dataset, with reported national employment of 7,940. Wage data is published for 76 locations.

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Occupation description

Paint, coat, or decorate articles, such as furniture, glass, plateware, pottery, jewelry, toys, books, or leather.

O*NET code

51-9123.00

Job zone

2

Typical education

Less than a High School Diploma

Experience

None

National salary and employment

Median annual

$41,600

Hourly median

$20.00

Employment

7,940

Data year

2025

National salary distribution

$31,470
10th
$37,030
25th
$41,600
Median
$50,360
75th
$60,820
90th

Top skills

SkillImportanceLevel
Active Listening2.882.25
Social Perceptiveness2.882.75
Monitoring2.882.62
Coordination2.882.62
Reading Comprehension2.752.25
Critical Thinking2.752.62
Speaking2.752.50
Time Management2.622.38
Judgment and Decision Making2.502.25
Service Orientation2.382.12
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Typical tasks

  • Apply coatings, such as paint, ink, or lacquer, to protect or decorate workpiece surfaces, using spray guns, pens, or brushes.
  • Examine finished surfaces of workpieces to verify conformance to specifications and retouch any defective areas.
  • Clean and maintain tools and equipment, using solvents, brushes, and rags.
  • Read job orders and inspect workpieces to determine work procedures and materials required.
  • Select and mix ingredients to prepare coating substances according to specifications, using paddles or mechanical mixers.
  • Place coated workpieces in ovens or dryers for specified times to dry or harden finishes.
  • Clean surfaces of workpieces in preparation for coating, using cleaning fluids, solvents, brushes, scrapers, steam, sandpaper, or cloth.
  • Conceal blemishes in workpieces, such as nicks and dents, using fillers such as putty.
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Technology

  • Adobe FreeHand MX
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Corel WordPerfect Office Suite
  • Microsoft Excel
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Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers salary by location

Areas with the highest reported employment for this occupation.

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Career and skills data: O*NET 31.0 (onetcenter.org). Salary and employment data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS, 2025 (bls.gov/oes). Figures are published survey estimates, not real-time market data.