Occupation · SOC 21-1012
Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors Salary
Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors earn a median of $64,330 a year in the United States, which is $30.93 an hour. The mean is $71,430, and 353,310 people are employed in the occupation.
The full pay range
A single average hides most of what a reader wants to know. BLS publishes the whole distribution, so here it is: each row is the annual salary at that point in the pay range for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors.
Annual salary by percentile May 2025
| Percentile | Annual salary | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $45,020 | entry level, or a lower-paying region |
| 25th percentile | $51,270 | early career |
| Median (50th) | $64,330 | half earn more, half earn less |
| 75th percentile | $82,870 | experienced |
| 90th percentile | $104,770 | top of the field |
Common questions
How much do educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors make?
The median salary for educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors in the United States is $64,330 a year, which is $30.93 an hour. The mean is $71,430. Median and mean differ because a small number of very high earners pull the mean upward, so the median is the better answer to what the job typically pays.
What is the highest salary for an educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisor?
The highest-paid 10 percent of educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors earn $104,770 or more. That is the highest figure the survey publishes for this occupation; there is no reported maximum, and individual earnings above it are not broken out.
How many people work as educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors in the US?
353,310, as of the May 2025 release. That covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed, who are not surveyed.
How much do educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors make a month?
About $5,361 a month before tax, which is the published annual median of $64,330 divided by twelve. BLS publishes annual and hourly wages rather than monthly, so treat this as arithmetic on the annual figure, not a separate measurement.
Do educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors make $100,000 a year?
Some do. The best-paid 10 percent earn $104,770 or more, while the typical figure is $64,330. Six figures in this occupation is the top of the field, not the middle.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure above is published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 release, for SOC code 21-1012. Nothing here is interpolated or averaged by this site. The survey covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed. See how to read these figures for what that means in practice.