Childcare Workers
Attend to children at schools, businesses, private households, and childcare institutions. Perform a variety of tasks, such as dressing, feeding, bathing, and overseeing play.
A wage reference for United States.
Published wage percentiles describe a distribution within the source occupation group. They provide context for a career decision; employer packages and job offers have their own terms.
This wage group may include multiple detailed occupations. The figures are for the source group, which may be broader than Childcare Workers. They are not an exact-title, employer, experience or seniority match.
May 2025 · USD · United States. Annual and hourly figures are shown only when the source publishes them; neither is calculated from the other.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage data, distributed through the O*NET® OnLine service.
Annual wage thresholds
USD per year
Hourly wage thresholds
USD per hour
| Percentile | Annual wage (USD/year) | Hourly wage (USD/hour) |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $24,260 | $11.66 |
| 25th | $29,360 | $14.12 |
| 50th · Median | $34,980 | $16.82 |
| 75th | $38,570 | $18.55 |
| 90th | $46,010 | $22.12 |
“≥” means at least the published amount; “≤” means at most that amount. These are bounds, not exact values. “Not published” means the source did not provide that figure. Occupational wages follow the source definition and do not establish an employer’s base salary, equity or total compensation.
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What this career involves.
Occupation definitions describe common work. Responsibilities and requirements vary by employer and specific job.
Selected title examples
Expand more title examples (48)
Typical tasks
- Maintain a safe play environment.
- Observe and monitor children's play activities.
- Communicate with children's parents or guardians about daily activities, behaviors, and related issues.
- Support children's emotional and social development, encouraging understanding of others and positive self-concepts.
- Care for children in institutional setting, such as group homes, nursery schools, private businesses, or schools for people with disabilities.
- Sanitize toys and play equipment.
Expand more tasks (18)
- Dress children and change diapers.
- Keep records on individual children, including daily observations and information about activities, meals served, and medications administered.
- Identify signs of emotional or developmental problems in children and bring them to parents' or guardians' attention.
- Instruct children in health and personal habits, such as eating, resting, and toilet habits.
- Organize and store toys and materials to ensure order in activity areas.
- Perform general administrative tasks, such as taking attendance, editing internal paperwork, and making phone calls.
- Create developmentally appropriate lesson plans.
- Perform housekeeping duties, such as laundry, cleaning, dish washing, and changing of linens.
- Read to children and teach them simple painting, drawing, handicrafts, and songs.
- Assist in preparing food and serving meals and refreshments to children.
- Discipline children and recommend or initiate other measures to control behavior, such as caring for own clothing and picking up toys and books.
- Regulate children's rest periods.
- Organize and participate in recreational activities and outings, such as games and field trips.
- Sterilize bottles and prepare formulas.
- Help children with homework and school work.
- Provide care for children with physical, developmental, or mental health disabilities.
- Perform general personnel functions, such as supervision, training, and scheduling.
- Accompany children to and from school, on outings, and to medical appointments.
Skills used in this work
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
Expand more skills (29)
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Negotiation
- Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Management of Personnel Resources
- Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Mathematics
- Using mathematics to solve problems.
- Quality Control Analysis
- Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Troubleshooting
- Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
- Technology Design
- Generating or adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs.
- Management of Material Resources
- Obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
- Operations Analysis
- Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
- Science
- Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
- Equipment Maintenance
- Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
- Equipment Selection
- Determining the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job.
- Installation
- Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or programs to meet specifications.
- Management of Financial Resources
- Determining how money will be spent to get the work done, and accounting for these expenditures.
- Operation and Control
- Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Programming
- Writing computer programs for various purposes.
- Repairing
- Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
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