Also called: Options Trader
Constantly offers to both buy and sell options contracts, earning a small profit on each trade while managing risk.
You watch thousands of prices update every second, adjust your quotes when news hits and play probability games in your head to manage risk. Many firms train new hires with poker and math games.
BLS lumps traders into securities sales agents (median ~$78k), which badly understates trading pay. Typical figures shown are salary plus bonus; bonuses depend on profits and can swing from zero to many times salary.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in math, engineering or economics; firms like Susquehanna and Optiver train you.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, Statistics.
Growing about average. Concentrated in Chicago and New York.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. Quoting is almost all automated; firms hire fewer traders, mostly to design strategies and manage risk when markets go wild.
Classes: AP Statistics, AP Calculus, Math team.
Official data: O*NET occupation 41-3031.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.