How To Become An Art Museum Docent: What It Is and Career Path

What is an art museum docent and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an art museum docent. For example, did you know that they make an average of $22.45 an hour? That's $46,696 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 4,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreArt Museum DocentUS Average

Salary

3.6

Avg. Salary $46,696

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.3

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.67%

Asian 9.74%

Black or African American 6.27%

Hispanic or Latino 10.04%

Unknown 5.37%

White 67.91%

Gender

female 78.57%

male 21.43%

Age - 28

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 28

Stress level

6.3

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.1

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.3

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an art museum docent

Explore art museum docent education requirements

Most common art museum docent degrees

Bachelor's

65.7 %

Associate

14.3 %

Master's

12.9 %

Start to develop specific art museum docent skills

Skills	Percentages
Art Museum	100.00%

Complete relevant art museum docent training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New art museum docents learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an art museum docent based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real art museum docent resumes.

Research art museum docent duties and responsibilities

Manage the sculpture and ceramic studios, keeping the areas clean, safe, and organize.
Work on set design and advance photo editing including color swapping and color correcting for commercial photography studio.
Monitor checkout stations to ensure that they have adequate cash available and that they are staffed appropriately.

Prepare your art museum docent resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your art museum docent resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an art museum docent resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable art museum docent resume templates

Build a professional art museum docent resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your art museum docent resume.