Weigh a pitch for your audience
Read a pitch or proposal with your audience in mind, then recommend accepting, requesting revisions or declining.
Career profile
Editor
Editors pick what an outlet publishes and help authors shape pieces an audience will want.
Careful reading meets judgment about what earns space. You might catch a confusing draft that skips context, or see your audience needs a certain piece.
A day in the life
Move key context up front
Suggest moving late-arriving key context nearer the start, then talk the change over with the writer.
Check dates and figures
Hold each date and figure against reference sources and flag mismatches so they're fixed before the piece runs.
Clean up sentences in Word
Rewrite muddled phrasing and fix misspellings in Microsoft Word, checking the outlet's style guide so usage stays uniform.
Fix page proofs before they run
In certain roles, you and the layout team fix page-proof problems before you sign off on the page.
Quick facts
Usually a bachelor's degree
United States
$77,920 a year
United States · May 2025
1% employment decline
United States · 2025–2035
Quick orientation
Preparation, pay & outlook
Preparation
Usually a bachelor's degreeWriting and proofreading experience also matter.
Pay
$77,920 a yearNational median; equivalent to $37.46 an hour.
Outlook
1% employment declineAbout 7,900 openings yearly, all from replacing workers who leave the occupation or workforce.
Fit, tradeoffs & changing tools
You might like this if…
- You enjoy finding the exact point where a reader might get lost.
- You can explain a change without making the writer feel dismissed.
- You like deciding which ideas deserve readers' attention.
Things to weigh
- Deadlines can stretch your workday.
- Keeping several drafts moving at once can be tiring.
Where AI may help
In some newsrooms, artificial intelligence (AI) tools suggest headlines and grammar changes. That gives editors options to review.
What people still lead
Editors still judge whether wording is accurate and fair. A fluent suggestion needs checking before it reaches readers.
What we can’t predict yet
How much revision shifts to AI remains unsettled. The balance between making edits yourself and checking machine suggestions may keep changing.
Pay in context
Earnings
These national employee wages exclude self-employed editors.
The midpoint and spread
The median was $77,920 a year, or $37.46 an hour. The lowest-paid 10% earned $41,250 or less; the highest-paid 10% earned $153,700 or more. Those thresholds describe the wage spread, not beginner and senior salaries.
Workplace affects the comparison
Annual medians were $62,600 at newspaper publishers and $77,400 in professional, scientific, and technical services. These are industry comparisons, not offers.
Getting started
Combine college with publication experience
- What the route involves
- Study English, journalism, or communications; gain writing and proofreading experience on student publications.
- What it can lead to
- This meets typical educational expectations for editor applicants.
Move across from writing or reporting
- What the route involves
- Build strong writing skills through work as a writer or reporter.
- What it can lead to
- That experience can support a move into editing, including publications in your subject area.
- What to check
- Employers may still expect a degree.
Build evidence that you can improve writing.
After entry
Career paths
This starts where the entry routes leave off: early work, growing capability, and advancement or specialization.
Become dependable
Learn the publication's style and deliver clean corrections on deadline.
Take on deeper revisions
In book editing, develop from fixing individual passages to helping an author reshape a manuscript's structure and content.
Lead editorial decisions
An executive editor oversees editors and makes final publication decisions.
Where you can work
Newsrooms
Coordinate coverage with reporters. Digital deadlines can extend working hours.
- Office
Large book publishers
Work with authors on manuscripts and with design, marketing, and production colleagues on the finished book. Separate departments handle different parts of publication.
- Office
Independent editing
Finding the next client becomes part of your workload, alongside adapting to different working arrangements.
- Indoors
Try it
See whether the job clicks before you commit to the path.
With a friend's permission, edit a short article they wrote. Choose its intended audience, suggest one structural change, and flag one statement to verify. Then explain whether it is ready to publish. Notice whether you enjoy both improving the draft and explaining your judgment.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editors — Occupational Outlook Handbook. Accessed 2026-10-03.
- O*NET OnLine / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Wages: 27-3041.00 — Editors. Accessed 2026-10-03.
- O*NET OnLine. 27-3041.00 — Editors. Accessed 2026-10-03.
- Penguin Random House. Department Guide. Accessed 2026-10-03.
- The Associated Press. AP updates newsroom standards for artificial intelligence. Accessed 2026-10-03.