Occupation / job
Etchers and Engravers
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 $43,310 midpoint for Etchers and Engravers sits $6,710 under the $50,020 the typical American job pays. That is a real living across much of the country and a thin one in expensive metros, so geography decides this more than seniority does.
With 7,750 employed nationally, Etchers and Engravers is a small occupation. Small occupations are quiet: few postings, slow turnover, and a real chance that the person you would replace is not going anywhere.
This work suits people who can hold quality steady through repetition, which is a real skill and one that machines have not entirely taken.
How long it takes to become one of the 7,750 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
A quarter of Etchers and Engravers earn under $37,400 and a quarter over $53,050 — 1.4x, or $15,650 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
A quarter of Etchers and Engravers earn under $37,400, which is $12,620 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if repetitive work over years would grind you down, which for many people it does.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 7,750 figure counts people already working as Etchers and Engravers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $37,400 and $53,050, a ratio of 1.4x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Etchers and Engravers is the cost of living where you do it.
The middle half of this field earns between $37,400 and $53,050. That is $15,650 of range, with $43,310 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $53,050, the 75th percentile, is worth $9,740 a year more than the $43,310 midpoint and $15,650 more than the $37,400 a quarter of Etchers and Engravers settle for.
It is $5,910 from $43,310 down to $37,400 but $9,740 up to $53,050. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $17.98 at the bottom quarter, $20.82 at the midpoint, $25.50 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
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Etchers and Engravers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $43,310 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Etchers and Engravers, the hourly figure is $43,310 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else