Transport and logistics
What does a Commercial Pilot do?
Getting people and goods where they need to be, on time and in one piece.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Right or wrong, to a standard.
The facts
- Pay
- $210,020 a year, median
- Airline and Commercial Pilots, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Varies; see the handbook page
- Several years, and usually a formal qualification.
- Jobs
- +7% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing
What is good about it
- It pays well against the rest of the work on this site.
What people find hard about it
- Years of low-paid hours building
- Time away from home
- Medical checks you can fail
The pay figure covers airline captains too; training costs are large and paid up front.
Will machines take this job?
What machines will do to this work. Routing and scheduling are heavily automated; responsibility for a vehicle, a load and a schedule stays with a person.
How to find out whether it suits you
Take a trial lesson, then price the full training honestly before anything else.
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.