Also called: Army 35P, Air Force 1N3, Navy CTI rating, Marine 2641
Learns a foreign language at the military's language school, then listens to and translates intercepted communications.
Linguists spend about a year in intensive language classes in Monterey, California, then work in secure facilities translating radio traffic or documents in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Korean, or others. Foreign language proficiency pay adds up to $1,000/month. Afterward, they become interpreters, translators, and analysts at federal agencies.
RMC (base pay + housing/food allowances + tax advantage) for typical E-1 to E-7 ranks, 2026 estimate, plus the special-duty, hazardous-duty, or skill pays this specialty usually earns. Enlistment/reenlistment bonuses for this field can be $10k-$50k+.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
High school diploma, about 1.5 years after high school. High school diploma and high Defense Language Aptitude Battery score, then ~26-64 weeks at the Defense Language Institute plus intelligence training. Top Secret clearance. 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: Foreign Languages, Linguistics, Middle Eastern or Asian Studies.
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.
High risk for 10 years. Machine translation and transcription now handle most intercepted speech; fewer linguists, kept for rare dialects and nuance.
Classes: AP foreign language, Second foreign language, English composition.
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.