Occupation / job
Commercial Divers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Commercial Divers pays $72,990 at the midpoint, 46% above the $50,020 national figure. Premiums that size are rationed by something; find out what before the salary does your thinking for you.
National employment of 3,450 makes this a small field. Small fields are relationship markets: the people already in Commercial Divers tend to know who is hiring before the posting exists.
These maintenance roles suit diagnosticians: people who enjoy finding out why something failed and are unbothered by being called when it is already broken and someone is already angry.
How long it takes to become one of the 3,450 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
The quarters sit at $54,810 and $101,550 — 1.9x, or $3,895 a month apart. At that width the occupation contains genuinely different jobs, and which one you are being offered matters more than the title does.
Even the 25th percentile pays $54,810, $4,790 more than the $50,020 typical American job and $26.35 an hour. The floor, not the median, is the strongest financial argument for Commercial Divers.
Avoid it if being on call, or being the person who arrives after something has already gone wrong, would wear on you.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 3,450 people employed as Commercial Divers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
From $54,810 to $101,550 at a ratio of 1.9x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $72,990 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
The middle half of this field earns between $54,810 and $101,550. That is $46,740 of range, with $72,990 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $54,810 and $101,550 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $72,990. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $28,560; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $46,740.
It is $18,180 from $72,990 down to $54,810 but $28,560 up to $101,550. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Commercial Divers is $35.09 an hour. The quarters sit at $26.35 and $48.82, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Commercial Divers. The self-employed are excluded, so $72,990 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
The hourly number on this page is $72,990 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Commercial Divers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else