How to Become a Semi Truck Driver
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a semi truck driver. For example, did you know that they make an average of $28.74 an hour? That's $59,789 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 99,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Semi Truck Driver Do
There are certain skills that many semi truck drivers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed hand-eye coordination, physical health and visual ability.
How To Become a Semi Truck Driver
If you're interested in becoming a semi truck driver, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 15.5% of semi truck drivers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.5% of semi truck drivers have master's degrees. Even though some semi truck drivers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a semi truck driver. When we researched the most common majors for a semi truck driver, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on semi truck driver resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a semi truck driver. In fact, many semi truck driver jobs require experience in a role such as truck driver. Meanwhile, many semi truck drivers also have previous career experience in roles such as driver or delivery driver.
Semi Truck Driver Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of driver you might progress to a role such as technician eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title general manager.
Average Salary for a Semi Truck Driver
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Semi Truck Driver
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 35.0% of semi truck drivers listed cdl on their resume, but soft skills such as hand-eye coordination and physical health are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Semi Truck Driver Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Semi Truck Driver templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Semi Truck Driver resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Semi Truck Driver Demographics
Semi Truck Driver Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among semi truck drivers, 9.8% of them are women, while 90.2% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among semi truck drivers is White, which makes up 67.8% of all semi truck drivers.
- The most common foreign language among semi truck drivers is Spanish at 50.0%.
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Best States For a Semi Truck Driver
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a semi truck driver. The best states for people in this position are North Dakota, New York, Wyoming, and Montana. Semi truck drivers make the most in North Dakota with an average salary of $79,731. Whereas in New York and Wyoming, they would average $73,897 and $73,153, respectively. While semi truck drivers would only make an average of $71,363 in Montana, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Wyoming
$73,153
Avg. Salary
2. Montana
$71,363
Avg. Salary
3. Mississippi
$60,916
Avg. Salary
How Do Semi Truck Driver Rate Their Jobs?
Top Semi Truck Driver Employers
Most Common Employers For Semi Truck Driver
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Covenant | $72,402 | $34.81 | 10 |
| 2 | C.R. England | $72,170 | $34.70 | 27 |
| 3 | US Express Freight Systems | $72,039 | $34.63 | 9 |
| 4 | USA Truck | $71,494 | $34.37 | 10 |
| 5 | Western Express | $70,256 | $33.78 | 7 |
| 6 | Knight Transportation | $69,470 | $33.40 | 75 |
| 7 | Schneider National | $67,824 | $32.61 | 26 |
| 8 | McLane | $65,679 | $31.58 | 8 |
| 9 | Werner Enterprises | $62,865 | $30.22 | 57 |
| 10 | Prime | $59,789 | $28.74 | 8 |
Semi Truck Driver Videos
