Occupation / job
Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
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
Substitute Teachers, Short-Term pays a median $41,670 against $50,020 across all occupations — $4.01 an hour of difference. At that distance the deciding variable is where you do it, not how long you have done it.
This is a large occupation: 524,770 people work as Substitute Teachers, Short-Term. Large occupations hire continuously and replace continuously, and the pay reflects both facts.
Instructing outside the school system suits people who are good at teaching adults who chose to be there, and who can tolerate a timetable assembled from several part-time commitments.
How long it takes to become one of the 524,770 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 earn below $34,170 and a quarter above $54,890: a 1.6x ratio, $20,720 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
The bottom quarter is under $34,170, $15,850 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.
Avoid it if you need one employer and a full timetable; this work is frequently assembled from several part-time positions.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 524,770 people employed as Substitute Teachers, Short-Term; 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
1.6x between $34,170 and $54,890 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $41,670 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
Put in money rather than ratios: $34,170 at the 25th percentile, $41,670 at the midpoint, $54,890 at the 75th. $20,720 separates the quarter of Substitute Teachers, Short-Term at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $34,170 and $54,890 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $41,670. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $13,220; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $20,720.
It is $7,500 from $41,670 down to $34,170 but $13,220 up to $54,890. 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 Substitute Teachers, Short-Term is $20.03 an hour. The quarters sit at $16.42 and $26.38, 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 Substitute Teachers, Short-Term. The self-employed are excluded, so $41,670 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
The hourly number on this page is $41,670 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term, 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