beta
Write my resume

Pay · 27-1011

Art Directors earn $114,850 a year at the midpoint

Pay in this work stretches a long way: the lowest tenth earn about $64,900, the highest tenth about $213,050, and the middle sits at $114,850.

Write my resume for this job →

$114,850median a year · United States
$55.22an hour $129,440average 53,070people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$82,48025th $114,850median $162,64075th
$64,90010th percentile $213,05090th percentile
$82,480a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$149,320best-paying state · Massachusetts
$60,460lowest-paying state · Kansas
+30%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

State matters a lotThe same job pays $149,320 in Massachusetts and $60,460 in Kansas — a gap of $88,860 a year.

Art director earnings, from starting pay up to the top 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

Experience
Name this figure
When they ask “What are your salary expectations?”

An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Art director pay rate, hourly to annual

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$114,858a year

Examples

Resumes written for this line of work.

Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.

All templates →

Art director wages across the states

The 41 states where the most people do this work, of 46 with a published figure: their medians range by 2.26 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Massachusetts $149,320 $78,470 $78,470 — $218,270 1,850
California $137,780 $81,500 $81,500 — $249,210 12,430
New York $137,320 $80,060 $80,060 — $280,320 8,720
Oregon $133,840 $89,390 $89,390 — $216,700 1,040
New Hampshire $132,000 $70,990 $70,990 — $169,950 160
Vermont $129,260 $77,360 $77,360 — $153,890 80
New Jersey $129,200 $87,700 $87,700 — $195,450 1,840
Washington $121,170 $69,690 $69,690 — $215,900 650
Georgia $110,430 $49,990 $49,990 — $198,360 1,420
Minnesota $109,700 $70,810 $70,810 — $177,680 920
Utah $106,500 $55,230 $55,230 — $164,030 290
Indiana $105,690 $61,990 $61,990 — $185,690 350
Illinois $103,550 $69,200 $69,200 — $172,050 2,960
Virginia $101,150 $64,010 $64,010 — $165,010 670
Missouri $100,940 $60,590 $60,590 — $162,340 780
Colorado $99,990 $73,110 $73,110 — $162,610 720
Florida $99,660 $56,780 $56,780 — $163,450 2,520
Maryland $98,400 $61,160 $61,160 — $175,690 570
Nevada $98,070 $60,000 $60,000 — $185,100 290
Pennsylvania $97,450 $65,470 $65,470 — $149,940 1,250
Ohio $94,390 $57,740 $57,740 — $148,080 1,050
Tennessee $89,860 $50,530 $50,530 — $172,130 930
Hawaii $89,300 $48,920 $48,920 — $154,410 40
Texas $88,270 $55,730 $55,730 — $172,130 2,480
South Carolina $87,990 $64,380 $64,380 — $180,030 550
Michigan $86,660 $54,590 $54,590 — $166,880 1,080
Louisiana $83,640 $56,780 $56,780 — $187,000 160
North Dakota $83,170 $53,200 $53,200 — $104,290 30
Wisconsin $81,130 $58,470 $58,470 — $131,850 730
Iowa $80,940 $62,990 $62,990 — $126,990 280
Oklahoma $80,680 $62,960 $62,960 — $143,260 290
Alabama $77,220 $56,540 $56,540 — $131,700 210
Kentucky $76,160 $42,990 $42,990 — $121,940 320
Alaska $75,200 $60,260 $60,260 — $104,990 40
Montana $73,850 $45,700 $45,700 — $96,030 100
Nebraska $73,270 $54,530 $54,530 — $102,590 140
Rhode Island $72,550 $56,730 $56,730 — $194,000 90
Arkansas $71,930 $52,990 $52,990 — $130,030 240
Connecticut $71,900 $69,990 $69,990 — $161,580 1,160
South Dakota $66,610 $56,730 $56,730 — $85,530 30
Mississippi $66,020 $44,020 $44,020 — $174,410 90

No estimate is published for 3 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

A resume for art directors

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

Adobe Creative Cloud softwareAdobe After EffectsAdobe InDesignAdobe IllustratorAdobe PhotoshopFigmaHypertext markup language HTMLCascading style sheets CSS
  • Worked with creative directors to develop design solutions.
  • Presented final layouts to clients for approval.
  • Managed own accounts and projects, working within budget and scheduling requirements.

Write my resume →

This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Adjacent work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Art Directors$114,850
Artists and Related Workers, All Other$71,240−$43,610 Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators$55,490−$59,360 Craft Artists$46,080−$68,770

Place 70 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 91% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 68 Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors $115,160
  2. 69 Construction Managers $114,990
  3. 70 Art Directors $114,850
  4. 71 Administrative Services Managers $114,130
  5. 72 Materials Engineers $112,860

Questions people ask

What is an art director’s yearly income?

An art director makes a median of $114,850 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $82,480 and $162,640.

What is an art director’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $55.22 an hour; the average is $129,440 a year.

What is the starting pay for an art director?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $82,480 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $64,900.

Which state pays art directors the most?

Massachusetts, with a median of $149,320 a year.

How many people work as art directors?

About 53,070 in the United States — number 70 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays nearly the same

Median pay within $1,730 of what art directors earn — $114,850 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations