Food and hospitality
What does a Hairdresser or Barber do?
Feeding and looking after people, at pace, in person.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Tools, materials, your body.
- People all day.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $35,880 a year, median
- Barbers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Postsecondary nondegree award
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- Jobs
- +7% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing
What is good about it
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
- You can see what you did at the end of the day.
What people find hard about it
- Standing all day
- Building a client list from nothing
- Weekend work
Employed pay is low; the money is in a chair of your own and repeat clients.
Will machines take this job?
What machines will do to this work. Ordering and stock control are automating; cooking and service in a busy room are not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Spend a Saturday in a salon and count how much of it is conversation.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.