In the BLS OEWS May 2025 data, the two big teaching categories run from a $16.82-an-hour median for childcare workers (SOC 39-9011 — aides, assistants and many lead teachers; $34,980 a year) to $18.34 an hour for preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011; $38,140 a year).
Center directors (SOC 11-9031) earn a $59,300 median.
Setting moves the numbers sharply: the same preschool-teacher job pays a $36,850 median in child care services but $56,750 in schools.
Typical pay for early childhood educators
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025 release, is the anchor for every pay comparison in early childhood education (ECE).
Three occupations in it carry this page.
- Childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) — the category that holds center aides, assistant teachers and many lead teachers: a median of $16.82 an hour ($34,980 a year).
- Preschool teachers, except special education (SOC 25-2011) — lead and pre-K teachers in nursery and preschool settings: a median of $18.34 an hour ($38,140 a year).
- Education and childcare administrators, preschool and daycare (SOC 11-9031) — center directors: a median of $28.51 an hour ($59,300 a year).
These are medians, not averages: half the occupation earns more, half earns less.
Means run higher in all three — $16.84 an hour for childcare workers, $20.69 for preschool teachers and $31.15 for directors — so use the median when you compare offers.
Percentiles show the spread around those medians.
Childcare workers earn $11.66 an hour at the 10th percentile and $22.12 an hour at the 90th.
Preschool teachers earn $13.94 an hour ($28,990 a year) at the 10th percentile and $29.52 an hour ($61,390 a year) at the 90th.
Directors earn $38,580 a year at the 10th percentile and $98,240 a year at the 90th.
A 10th-percentile wage is not a starting salary — it is the wage below which 10 percent of the occupation falls.
Treat the range as the shape of the field, not a promise about any one offer.
One boundary on all of it: the wage counts behind these medians (518,910 childcare-worker jobs) cover employees only.
Childcare workers held about 1.0 million jobs in 2025, and the self-employed (24 percent) and private-household workers such as nannies (17 percent) sit outside the wage survey — so the medians do not describe home daycare owners or nannies.
Pay by role: aide, assistant, lead teacher and director
The federal categories do not carry center job-ad titles.
Aides, assistant teachers and many center lead teachers are counted under childcare workers (SOC 39-9011), lead and pre-K teachers in preschool settings under preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011), and directors under education and childcare administrators (SOC 11-9031).
That mapping is the honest national version of the pay ladder:
| Role on a job ad | BLS occupation (SOC) | Median, May 2025 | 10th to 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aide, assistant teacher, many center lead teachers | Childcare workers (39-9011) | $16.82 an hour ($34,980 a year) | $11.66 to $22.12 an hour |
| Lead or pre-K teacher (preschool settings) | Preschool teachers, except special education (25-2011) | $18.34 an hour ($38,140 a year) | $13.94 to $29.52 an hour |
| Teaching assistant (broad category, not a daycare-specific figure) | Teaching assistants, except postsecondary (25-9045) | $36,780 a year (annual only) | $27,150 to $50,040 a year |
| Center director | Education and childcare administrators, preschool and daycare (11-9031) | $28.51 an hour ($59,300 a year) | $38,580 to $98,240 a year |
Read the teaching-assistant row with care: SOC 25-9045 is a broad occupation covering teaching assistants wherever they work — in child care services they were 14.0 percent of all jobs in May 2025 — so it is not a daycare-assistant figure.
BLS publishes annual wages only for it — there is no hourly median to convert.
For scale, in child care services preschool teachers were 34.6 percent of all jobs in May 2025, childcare workers 26.9 percent and center directors 6.0 percent.
Within these federal categories, aides and assistant teachers are not separated from the lead teachers counted alongside them, so the data has no distinct figure for the pay difference between those titles.
Our research also found no verified source for typical raise sizes or lead-versus-assistant differentials in job listings.
What changes at each rung — and how registries and state career ladders price credentials — is the territory of our childcare pay ladder guide.
For state-by-state tables for each occupation, see the preschool teacher salary, childcare worker salary and daycare director salary pages.
Pay by setting: centers, Head Start, public pre-K and family child care
The same job title pays very differently by industry.
The federal industry tables split preschool teaching three ways:
- Child care services (NAICS 6244) — the daycare industry: preschool teachers earn a median of $17.72 an hour ($36,850 a year), and childcare workers in the industry earn $16.43 an hour ($34,170 a year).
- Elementary and secondary schools, all ownerships: preschool teachers earn a median of $27.29 an hour ($56,750 a year).
- Inside schools, ownership matters: preschool teachers in local-government schools earn a $61,300 median, against $44,290 in private elementary and secondary schools.
One caution when you compare annual figures: BLS notes that many public-school preschool teachers work the traditional 10-month school year with a 2-month summer break, while teachers in daycare settings may work year-round with longer hours.
Head Start. BLS does not publish wages for Head Start as a separate industry, so no federal figure on this page is a Head Start wage.
The nearest verified comparison is the individual and family services industry (NAICS 6241), which includes many Head Start grantees: preschool teachers there earned a $45,550 median, against $36,850 in child daycare services — an industry-group comparison, not a Head Start pay scale.
The credential profile differs there too: center-based Head Start preschool teachers need at least an associate degree, and at least 50 percent of Head Start preschool teachers nationwide must hold a bachelor's degree in early childhood education or a related field.
On pay, the 2024 Head Start rule (45 CFR 1302.90(e)) requires programs, by August 1, 2031, to pay each Head Start teacher an annual salary at least comparable to public-school preschool teachers in the local school district — but on May 12, 2026, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) proposed removing the wage and benefit requirements in 1302.90(e) and (f), and the current standards stay in effect until a final rule is published.
Head Start pay parity is therefore not settled.
Family child care. Our research found no verified national income figure for home-based providers: the wage survey excludes self-employed workers and private households, and BLS publishes no wage figure for home daycare owners or nannies.
BLS says a self-employed provider's pay depends on the hours worked and the number and ages of the children in care — so weighing home daycare against a center job means building an estimate from enrollment, hours and local rates rather than from a published median.
Figures move; programs change
Pay by credential: CDA, associate and bachelor's
We found no federal table that tabulates early childhood pay by credential, so the honest answer has two parts: what credentials unlock, and the one program on this page where public rules set credential-linked minimum salaries.
First, the unlock.
BLS says preschool teachers typically need at least an associate degree, and public-school preschool teachers generally need a bachelor's degree and an early childhood license.
Center-based Head Start teachers need at least an associate, with at least 50 percent nationwide required to hold a bachelor's.
The school medians on this page run from $44,290 in private schools to $61,300 in local-government schools, against the $36,850 daycare median.
The Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, is the credential BLS says states most often require of childcare workers who need a national credential, and it renews every 3 years.
Second, the floors.
Washington, DC's Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund is the one to know: since FY24, OSSE — the agency that runs it — has paid participating child development facilities quarterly, and participating facilities must agree to pay at least minimum salaries set by role and credential, unless OSSE approves a waiver.
From January 1, 2026, those minimums are:
- an assistant teacher with a CDA: $48,736 a year ($23.43 an hour)
- a lead teacher with a CDA: $48,736 a year ($23.43 an hour)
- a lead teacher with an ECE associate degree (or 12 ECE credits): $60,678 a year ($29.17 an hour)
- a lead teacher with an ECE bachelor's (or a bachelor's plus 12 ECE credits): $71,010 a year ($34.14 an hour)
- an assistant or associate home caregiver with an associate degree or 60 college credits: $51,576 a year ($24.80 an hour)
Three cautions.
These are DC minimums for participating facilities, not national medians, and they are not directly comparable with the federal wage figures above.
Facilities are not required to join the fund.
And DC reduced the minimums effective January 1, 2026 — OSSE warned that employers may lower educators' pay from that date — so older, higher figures still circulating online are outdated.
For the full degree-by-degree picture — associate versus bachelor's versus master's, and what each does to pay in a center versus a school — see our guide to pay by degree.
Pay by age group taught
The national figures on this page do not split by the age group taught, so no verified national figure separates infant pay from toddler or preschool pay.
Where infant-toddler work does show up in the verified pay rules, it is as a bonus criterion or a pay-neutrality rule, not as a wage table:
- Connecticut's Qualified Workforce Incentive, funded by the federal Preschool Development Grant, pays awards up to $2,600 — a base award of $250 to $2,000 by employment status, plus up to $600 in bonuses, including for staff working 30 or more hours a week with infants and toddlers.
- The 2024 Head Start rule also requires, by August 1, 2031, a salary floor "generally sufficient to cover basic needs" and pay that does not differ by the age of children served — part of the same wage package ACF proposed removing on May 12, 2026.
- Washington, DC's Pay Equity Fund attaches its minimum salaries to role and credential, not to the age band taught.
If you are weighing an infant-room offer against a preschool one, the verified national data will not settle it — ask the program for its pay scale directly.
Why ECE pay trails K-12
The comparison that stings: kindergarten teachers (SOC 25-2012) earned a national median of $62,680 a year in May 2025 — about $24,500 more than the $38,140 preschool-teacher median — for work one age rung up.
And within the same preschool-teacher occupation, the school-based median is $56,750 against $36,850 in child care services.
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment frames the same gap from the worker side.
Its 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index — built on 2022 American Community Survey data that include home-based providers, which is why its figures read lower than the federal wage survey — reports a national median early-educator wage of $13.07 an hour, against $31.80 an hour for elementary and middle school teachers.
By the same index, 97 percent of other occupations are paid more than early educators.
Why the gap exists — how tuition-funded budgets, staffing ratios and public subsidies interact — is a full topic of its own.
We break it down in our guide to why childcare pay is low.
How to earn more in early childhood
Every lever the verified data points to has a page of its own.
Here is the map, and what each lever is anchored to:
- Move up the occupations. The medians climb by category: $34,980 for childcare workers (the aide-and-assistant occupation), $38,140 for preschool teachers and $59,300 for center directors. The rung-by-rung detail is in our childcare pay ladder guide.
- Change the setting. The same preschool-teacher occupation pays a $56,750 median in schools against $36,850 in child care services — and public-school preschool teachers generally need a bachelor's degree and an early childhood license. If you are weighing the degree, that trade is the one to price.
- Add the credential the next rung wants. Associate, bachelor's and CDA steps change both eligibility and — in programs like DC's pay fund — the literal pay floor. The full breakdown is in our guide to pay by degree.
- Stack a state supplement. Education-based supplements pay on top of wages: North Carolina's WAGE$ program, run by Early Years, Inc., serves teachers, directors and family child care providers in participating counties and reports an average six-month supplement of $1,285. WAGE$-model programs also run in states including Florida (as INCENTIVE$), Iowa and Tennessee. What exists, who qualifies and how to apply: our guide to state wage supplements and bonuses.
- Mind the outlook. BLS projects preschool-teacher employment to grow 4 percent from 2025 to 2035, with about 66,700 openings a year, while childcare-worker employment is projected to decline 2 percent, with about 150,300 openings a year from replacement needs. The preschool-teacher occupation is the one projected to grow; on the childcare-worker side, the openings are chiefly about replacing workers who leave.
- Map the role before the raise. If you are still deciding where to start, our childcare teacher career guide covers the roles, training steps and settings in one place.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Wage data here is the BLS OEWS May 2025 release, and program minimums and supplement rules change — confirm current details with the Office of Head Start, your state education agency or your state child care licensing agency, as applicable.