Occupation / job
Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas
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
The $58,620 midpoint sits $4.13 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 17% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas.
10,590 people work as Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
Extraction work suits people who will go where the deposit is, work a rotation away from home, and treat the safety regime as the actual condition of employment.
No verified preparation time is on file for Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
Between $49,880 and $71,610 there is $21,730, a ratio of 1.4x. Tight distributions are predictable, and predictable cuts both ways: little risk of being badly underpaid, little prospect of doing much better.
Even the 25th percentile pays $49,880, $140 more than the $50,020 typical American job and $23.98 an hour. The floor, not the median, is the strongest financial argument for Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas.
Avoid it if you cannot relocate to where the deposit is, or if a downturn in the commodity cycle would leave you stranded.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 10,590 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $49,880 and $71,610, a ratio of 1.4x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas is the cost of living where you do it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $49,880 at the 25th percentile, $58,620 at the midpoint, $71,610 at the 75th. $21,730 separates the quarter of Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $49,880 and $71,610 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $58,620. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $12,990; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $21,730.
$12,990 separates $58,620 from the $71,610 top quarter, while only $8,740 separates it from $49,880. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $23.98 at the bottom quarter, $28.18 at the midpoint, $34.42 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas. The self-employed are excluded, so $58,620 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $58,620 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else