Photographers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Photographers ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $34,790. BLS top-codes very high wages ($239,200+ a year, $115.00+ an hour) and marks estimates it cannot publish as n/p.

Employment and concentration

May 2024 employment stood at 51,230, or 0.03% of the U.S. total. California leads the state table with 7,300 jobs; the top three states sum to 30.3% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Hawaii posts a location quotient of 2.20, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $65,150 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($94,760) is 3.2 times the 10th percentile ($29,610), a gap of $65,150 a year. The mean of $55,650 sitting above the median of $42,520 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

The state spread for Photographers runs from the $110,530 median in District of Columbia down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (7,300 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Photographers stands number 385 by employment and number 669 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations, the group median wage is $66,220 across 36 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 36% less than its group median, and it supplies 2.6% of the group's 1,989,300 jobs. In 20 of the 49 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $42,520, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 3,690 jobs, 7.2% of the national total. Employment rank and pay rank are different lists: the second table re-sorts metros with at least 500 jobs in this occupation by mean pay, the floor keeping a handful of workers from posing as a market.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Cleveland, OH posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $37,680 a year, against $92,110 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. That is the metro effect in one line: identical job title, materially different pay, decided mostly by which labor market the job sits in.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $3,543 a month before tax, $1,635 biweekly, $818 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($34,790) to the 75th ($62,370) is worth $27,580 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $46,772 would sit between the median ($42,520) and the 75th percentile ($62,370), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $34,790, is $7,730 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Media and Communication Workers, All Other, Special Effects Artists and Animators, Broadcast Technicians, Fashion Designers, Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials, Athletes and Sports Competitors. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.