Also called: Navy SB rating, Special Boat Operator
Navy special operators who drive high-speed boats to insert and extract SEALs and fight on rivers and coastlines.
SWCCs pilot heavily armed boats at night at 50+ mph, navigate rivers and coastlines, man machine guns, and train in parachuting their boats out of aircraft. It's the Navy's lesser-known special warfare career.
RMC (base pay + housing/food allowances + tax advantage) for typical E-1 to E-7 ranks, 2026 estimate, plus the special-duty, hazardous-duty, flight, dive, jump, or language pays this specialty usually earns. Enlistment/reenlistment bonuses for this field can be large.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 1 year after high school. High school diploma, ASVAB, special warfare fitness test, then about a year of SWCC selection and training. Free-college benefits: Tuition Assistance (up to $4,500/yr) while serving, the Post-9/11 GI Bill (36 months of tuition + housing stipend) afterward, and SkillBridge internships before separating.
Ways in: Military, On-the-job training. Training cost: Get paid while you train.
Majors to look at: Marine Technology.
Growing about average. Military specialties are not in BLS projections. The services recruit for this job every year and openings track force size and retention rather than market growth.
Low risk for 10 years. Autonomous boats are coming, but inserting SEALs under fire stays human-crewed for now.
Classes: PE / swimming, Small engines CTE, Physics.
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.