Careers that care for the dead and the grieving, from funeral directors to organ donation coordinators and death doulas.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Funeral Home Owner: Owns and runs a funeral home business, often one passed down through generations. Typical pay $105k.
Thanatologist: Studies death, dying, and grief scientifically, and teaches others to support the dying. Typical pay $90k.
Funeral Director: Plans funerals and guides families through arrangements after someone dies. Typical pay $61k.
Organ Procurement Coordinator: Coordinates organ donation so a donor's heart, kidneys, and liver can save other lives. Typical pay $90k.
Grief Counselor: Helps people cope with the death of someone they love. Typical pay $59k.
Cemetery Manager: Runs a cemetery: burials, grounds, records, and sales of plots. Typical pay $68k.
Mass Fatality Management Specialist: Helps identify victims and support families after disasters like plane crashes and hurricanes. Typical pay $90k.
Hospice Chaplain: Offers spiritual comfort to dying patients and their families. Typical pay $62k.
Mortuary Restorative Artist: Uses makeup, wax, and sculpting so the deceased look peaceful for their families. Typical pay $55k.
Cryonics Technician: Prepares legally deceased people for long-term storage in liquid nitrogen, in hopes future medicine could revive them. Typical pay $65k.
Starter: fastest way in
Embalmer: Preserves bodies so they can be viewed at funerals. Typical pay $53k.
Crematory Operator: Operates the cremation equipment that turns remains into ashes. Typical pay $40k.
Death Doula: Supports dying people and their families emotionally and practically in their final weeks. Typical pay $35k.
Crime Scene Cleaner: Cleans up after crimes, accidents, and unattended deaths. Typical pay $50k.
Autopsy Technician: Assists pathologists during autopsies at hospitals and medical examiners' offices. Typical pay $50k.
Monument & Headstone Carver: Designs, carves and engraves headstones and memorials in granite and marble for monument companies and cemeteries, then sets the stones. Typical pay $45k.
Obituary Writer: Writes life stories of people who have died, for newspapers and families. Typical pay $45k.
Casket Maker: Builds wooden caskets and burial boxes by hand or on a factory line, from plain pine boxes to polished hardwood. Typical pay $40k.
Funeral & Memorial Bagpiper: Plays bagpipes at funerals, memorials and graveside services, especially for police officers, firefighters and veterans. Typical pay $25k.
Music Thanatologist: Plays soft harp music and sings at the bedsides of dying patients to ease pain, breathing and fear in their last days. Typical pay $45k.
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.