O*NET Occupational Data

O*NET Occupational Data

O*NET provides occupational data for 900+ occupations — skills, knowledge, abilities, work activities, wages, job outlook, education requirements. SOC code based (e.g. 15-1252.00 = Software Developers). Key endpoints: /online/search (keyword search), /mnm/search (career exploration), occupational details by SOC code. Data includes importance and level ratings for each skill/knowledge area.

Data Model

• Occupations — identified by SOC code (e.g. 15-1252.00). Each has a title, description, and detailed data across multiple domains.
• Skills — 35 cross-functional skills rated by importance (1-5) and level (0-7). Categories: basic (reading, writing, math), social, technical, systems, resource management.
• Knowledge — 33 areas of knowledge rated by importance and level. Includes engineering, math, English, computers, customer service.
• Abilities — 52 enduring attributes rated by importance and level. Cognitive, psychomotor, physical, sensory.
• Work activities — 41 general activities and 332 detailed activities describing day-to-day work.
• Education/training — typical education level, experience, and on-the-job training requirements.
• Wages — median annual and hourly wages by occupation, national and by state.
• Outlook — projected job growth rate and annual openings.
• Career categories — browse Bright Outlook occupations (projected growth), career clusters, green occupations, hot technologies, job families, and job zones (entry requirements).

Gotchas

• Accept header — must send Accept: application/json for JSON responses; default is XML.
• Search results — keyword search returns relevance-scored results with SOC code links.
• Rate limit — no published rate limit but excessive requests may be blocked.
• Versioning — data updates annually; latest release reflected automatically.