Also called: Electricity Trader
Buys and sells electricity on the power grid, betting on heat waves, wind speeds and power plant outages.
At 5 a.m. you read weather forecasts; if a heat wave is coming, electricity prices could spike 10x. You bid in tomorrow's power auctions and watch the grid in real time.
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 engineering, economics or finance.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Electrical Engineering, Economics, Finance, Meteorology.
Growing faster than average. Growing with renewable energy and grid complexity.
Medium risk for 10 years. AI improves load and weather forecasts; reading grid outages and taking positions with judgment still need human traders.
Classes: Physics, AP Statistics, AP Environmental Science.
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.