Is childcare a good career?
It can be — the work is meaningful, entry is fast, and the BLS projects about 150,300 childcare worker openings a year, on average, over 2025–35.
The honest trade-off is pay: the May 2025 median for childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) is $34,980 a year.
This page weighs the pros, the cons and the levers that turn a daycare job into a career.
Is childcare a good career? The short answer
Yes — for the right person, childcare is a good career.
It is a large field — the BLS counted 1,010,300 childcare workers and 583,200 preschool teachers in 2025 — and it is quick to enter: the typical entry-level education for childcare workers is a high school diploma or equivalent, though states differ.
Whether it is a good career for you comes down to three trade-offs this page puts numbers on: the work is meaningful and the hiring numbers are large, the pay is modest, and the day is physically and emotionally demanding.
The demand data cuts both ways, and this page will not smooth it over.
BLS projects childcare worker employment to decline 2% from 2025 to 2035 (about -19,900 jobs), yet still expects about 150,300 openings for childcare workers each year, on average, over the decade — all from replacement needs.
Preschool teacher employment is projected to grow 4% over the same decade, with about 66,700 openings a year.
Pay is the honest headline con.
The May 2025 median was $34,980 a year ($16.82 an hour) for childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) and $38,140 ($18.34 an hour) for preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011).
Which federal category your job title lands in is not obvious: O*NET lists "Daycare Teacher" under childcare workers, titles like "Pre-Kindergarten Teacher" and "Montessori Preschool Teacher" under preschool teachers, and "Infant Teacher" and "Toddler Teacher" under both.
The rest of this page is the evaluation: the pros, the cons, who the work suits, and how teachers turn a daycare job into a better-paying long-term career.
If you are still sizing up the role itself, the daycare teacher career guide covers what the job involves day to day.
The pros: meaning, steady openings, fast entry and a ladder
The work is consequential, not just supervisory
O*NET's task lists for the two federal codes describe real teaching and real responsibility.
For childcare workers (39-9011), O*NET lists keeping records on individual children (daily observations, activities, meals served, medications given), dressing children and changing diapers, sanitizing toys, and communicating with parents about daily activities and behaviors.
For preschool teachers (25-2011), the tasks include teaching basic skills such as colors, shapes, numbers, letters, hygiene and social skills, serving meals and snacks per nutritional guidelines, and meeting with parents about progress.
BLS defines preschool teachers as educating and caring for children younger than age 5 who have not yet entered kindergarten.
If you want the full shape of the job first, this guide to what a childcare teacher does walks through the duties by part of the day and age group.
The hiring numbers are large
Even in the occupation BLS projects to shrink, about 150,300 childcare worker openings are projected each year, on average, over 2025–35 — and BLS is explicit that all of them come from replacement needs, not from job growth.
Preschool teachers add about 66,700 openings a year on top of 4% projected growth.
For a job seeker, replacement-driven hiring means openings keep appearing even while total employment stays flat or slips.
Scale matters too: 1,010,300 childcare workers and 583,200 preschool teachers were employed in 2025 — a large field, not a niche.
Entry is fast by design
BLS lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education for childcare workers, and notes that requirements vary: some states require a diploma or GED, while others have no education requirement for entry-level positions. (That is BLS's statistical label, not a legal minimum.) A fast start is not an unregulated one: BLS notes that to qualify for licensure, childcare staff often must pass a background check, have a complete record of immunizations and meet a minimum training requirement, and some states require CPR and first aid certification.
The ladder is real
This is not a field with one flat job.
When a state requires a nationally recognized credential for childcare workers, BLS reports it is most often the Child Development Associate (CDA), which must be renewed every three years.
BLS's statistical label for preschool teachers is at least an associate's degree, and BLS says public-school preschool teachers generally need at least a bachelor's plus a state early childhood teaching license.
The last section covers how settings and credentials can move pay.
Confirm the entry rules where you live
The cons: pay, physical demands and emotional load
Pay is the field's structural weakness
The May 2025 medians are $34,980 a year ($16.82 an hour) for childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) and $38,140 ($18.34 an hour) for preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011).
The spread inside the occupation is wide: in May 2025 the lowest 10% of childcare workers earned less than $11.66 an hour and the highest 10% earned more than $22.12.
A 10th percentile is not entry-level pay — it describes the bottom tenth of earners — but the range shows how little headroom a classroom wage can have without a move up the ladder.
Comparisons with K-12 teaching point the same way, with a caveat.
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment's (CSCCE) 2024 Early Childhood Workforce Index reports a national median early-educator wage of $13.07 an hour, against $31.80 for elementary and middle school teachers, based on 2022 Census ACS data that include home-based providers.
Our research could not confirm those figures against the source, so read them as CSCCE's figures for 2022, not a current wage — and as a different data series from the May 2025 BLS medians above, not something to line up dollar-for-dollar with them.
The hours can be long, year-round, and part-time
BLS describes childcare centers as usually open year-round with long hours, with some centers covering the whole day using full-time and part-time staff on staggered shifts.
BLS also notes that part-time work and irregular hours are common for childcare workers.
Both facts matter for income: an hourly rate that looks workable lands differently once the year-round calendar is split into part-time or shifting schedules.
The physical and emotional load is the job
In O*NET's work-context survey, 83% of childcare workers reported constant contact with others and 51% reported working very close to others, near touching.
The task lists explain why: dressing children and changing diapers, sanitizing toys, serving meals, keeping daily records on each child, and communicating with parents about daily activities and behaviors.
That is the physical load — constant, close-contact care.
The emotional load deserves equal weight, and it is the one dimension no table captures.
There is no national burnout figure for early educators that our research could source, so this page will not quote one; what the data does show is the structure that makes the work demanding — constant contact with others and work done very close to them.
If hard weeks become the default rather than the exception, that is a real career risk to weigh, and one worth naming honestly before you commit.
Who thrives in childcare
Job titles tell you little about fit; the tasks and working conditions tell you a lot.
O*NET lists the essential skills for childcare workers as monitoring, active listening, critical thinking, speaking, active learning, learning strategies, reading comprehension and writing — a more professional skill set than the stereotype suggests.
Check yourself against the rest of the profile before you apply:
- You can stay observant for hours. Monitoring tops O*NET's skill list for childcare workers, and 83% of childcare workers report constant contact with others — there is no drifting through a shift.
- You are comfortable being close. 51% of childcare workers report working very near other people, near touching — diapering, dressing and feeding are the job, not interruptions to it.
- You can live with a year-round calendar that may be part-time or on staggered shifts, and budget for it.
- You like that the work is educational and physical at once: daily records, meals and sanitizing sit next to teaching letters, numbers and social skills.
- You have a plan for the pay — a credential, a degree route or a move between settings — rather than expecting the entry wage alone to carry a career.
If most of that list describes you, the cons become manageable trade-offs rather than deal-breakers.
If the schedule or the pay plan feels impossible now, be honest about it: the levers in the last section can move your pay and setting, but no credential fixes a schedule you cannot live with, so choose your setting accordingly.
How to make childcare a better-paying long-term career
Pay is the field's biggest con, and it is also the con with the most documented levers.
The data points to four: the setting you work in, the credentials states name, the degree-and-license route into schools, and registered apprenticeships.
Move between settings, not just jobs
Within the same occupation, industry medians differ.
Childcare workers earned a May 2025 median of $18.15 an hour in local elementary and secondary schools, $16.43 in child daycare services and $16.23 in religious, grantmaking, civic and similar organizations.
For preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011), the May 2025 median annual wage was $52,800 in educational services (state, local and private) versus $36,850 in child daycare services.
Those two comparisons use different occupation codes and units, so read each on its own — but within each code, the schools or educational-services median comes out higher than child daycare services.
Stack the credentials states actually name
When a state requires a nationally recognized credential for childcare workers, BLS reports it is most often the CDA, which must be renewed every three years.
The CDA credential requires coursework, experience in the field and a period of being observed working with children — that guide covers the process and timeline.
Use the degree-and-license route into schools
BLS's statistical label for preschool teachers is at least an associate's degree, with requirements varying by setting and state regulation.
The public-school route asks more: BLS says public-school preschool teachers generally need at least a bachelor's degree and must be licensed to teach early childhood education, and license names and grade bands vary by state.
The schedule changes too: BLS notes preschool teachers in public schools generally work school hours, often on a 10-month year, while those in daycare settings may work year-round with longer hours.
Our research has no separate BLS pay figure for public-school preschool teachers; the closest data is the industry split above, and educational services (state, local and private) is a broader category than licensed public-school teachers.
Train inside a registered apprenticeship
The Department of Labor registers apprenticeships for this field: O*NET lists "Child Care Development Specialist" (childcare workers) and "Early Childhood Educator" (preschool teachers) as Registered Apprenticeship titles.
If you need income during training, those two titles are the registered names to search for in your state.
For the full rung-by-rung map of roles, the guide to early childhood education careers covers every job in the field.
For the numbers behind these levers, the childcare teacher salary page collects the BLS medians and percentiles by state.
And when you are ready to make the move, daycare teacher jobs show which centers near you are hiring now.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Entry, training and qualification rules are set by state child care licensing agencies (public-school teaching licenses vary by state) — confirm current requirements with the agency that applies to you before you act on them.