Explore by Career/Construction and Extraction
Roustabouts, Oil and Gas
Assemble or repair oil field equipment using hand and power tools. Perform other tasks as needed.
- Median pay
- $47,510
- per year
- 10-year outlook
- +2.5%
- Stable
- Typical entry
- No formal educational credential
Key skills
- Critical Thinking
- Monitoring
- Operations Monitoring
- Operation and Control
- Quality Control Analysis
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Active Listening
- Social Perceptiveness
What they do
- Unscrew or tighten pipes, casing, tubing, and pump rods, using hand and power wrenches and tongs.
- Dismantle and repair oil field machinery, boilers, and steam engine parts, using hand tools and power tools.
- Guide cranes to move loads about decks.
- Walk flow lines to locate leaks, using electronic detectors and by making visual inspections, and repair the leaks.
- Lay gas and oil pipelines.
- Bolt together pump and engine parts.
- Move pipes to and from trucks, using truck winches and motorized lifts, or by hand.
- Clean trucks used in the fields.
- Dig holes, set forms, and mix and pour concrete into forms to make foundations for wood or steel derricks.
- Supply equipment to rig floors as requested and provide assistance to roughnecks.
Majors that lead here
No mapped majors yet.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, Employment Projections) and O*NET, used under CC BY 4.0.