What does a typical educational and career path look like for a commercial diver? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Commercial diving can be a wonderful career, but it is not without challenges, and many people who set out to become commercial divers leave the trade bitterly disappointed after less than a year. If you are considering commercial diving as a career path, be sure you know what you are getting into, and ask yourself if the lifestyle is right for you—not just the diving part of the work, but the lifestyle that comes with a typical commercial diving career.

There are of course many different career trajectories for commercial divers, but here is what I would think of as fairly typical:

1. Commercial diving school: There are many commercial diving schools in all parts of the world. In today’s commercial diving world, many employers will want to see specific certifications. Compare schools not only for costs, but also for duration, training conditions, recognized certifications that will be offered to students, location of diving training (which should, in my opinion, not be in warm, clear water with no currents), and reviews by past graduates.

2. Finding a job or series of jobs: Probably the most challenging stage of a commercial diving career is at the entry level. Dive school graduates feel like they are ready to dive and should be well paid for their skills, but most employers see recent graduates as people who are ready to begin on-the-job training and who should be paid something close to minimum wage. This stage of a diver’s career can last several years. Many—probably most—graduates of commercial diving schools leave the trade without completing this stage of the career trajectory.

3. Deciding what kind of diving works best for you: Some divers prefer harbor work, some prefer inland work in lakes and rivers, and some prefer to work offshore, in oilfields. In some regions divers work through unions that set pay and conditions, and in others they work under the protection of various safety and wage regulations (many of which, especially outside of North America and Western Europe, are extremely loose). As a general statement, daily wages are, on average, highest when working through unions and in oilfields, especially as careers advance beyond the entry level.

4. Career advancement: Divers in oilfields and some other situations may advance to become saturation divers, trained (and willing) to work and live under pressure for weeks at a time. Others will spend an entire career in relatively shallow water but may become known, for example, for their ability to work in extremely strong currents or in water that is no more transparent than mud. In both cases, most divers eventually advance to become supervisors, and, in general, supervisors seldom if ever dive themselves. Often, divers and especially supervisors eventually move into office or shop roles, where they might write contract proposals, meet with clients, or build and maintain diving systems. And one commercial diver I knew in the early 1980s went on to become an astronaut, so almost anything is possible.

5. Sporadic work: Very few commercial diving jobs are ongoing. More often, divers are hired to work on a particular job until it is completed, or, in some cases, on a rotation (of anything from say a few weeks on and a few weeks off to say two months on and one month off) that can run through the duration of a multi-year contract. Once the job ends or the contract ends, the diver has to find new work. It is extremely unusual, even for the biggest diving companies, to keep divers on the payroll between projects. Many divers have second trades that keep them busy between diving jobs. Others frequently move to different regions (sometimes internationally) to pursue jobs. Some divers I know work in diving fisheries (sea urchin harvesting in Alaska, for example) when they cannot find other work. But in any case, for the vast majority of divers, a big part of the career track involves finding work not once or twice or three times, but repeatedly and throughout their careers.

6. Career duration: The average commercial diver who sticks to the trade to reach beyond entry level jobs probably ends his or her career within about ten years or fifteen years of starting. There are many reasons for this, including the demands to work at remote locations (away from family and friends), the day-to-day difficulties of the job, injuries, aging, and long periods of unemployment (see below).

7. Risks: Commercial diving is often recognized as one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Statistically, this probably remains true, but the safety culture of commercial diving, especially in North America and Western Europe, has developed dramatically over the past few decades. Diving safety is an extremely important part of the trade in today’s world, and accidents are no longer routinely accepted as unavoidable.

8. Other: While what I have described may be more or less typical, there are many variations. Some divers obtain training in the Navy and later become commercial divers. Some divers start their own companies, especially for inland work or for activities such as cleaning ship bottoms. Some divers never accept supervisory positions in order to stay in the water. Some divers become safety advisors for client companies, overseeing contracts and diving projects for companies like BP, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips.

9. Commercial diver earnings: According to internet sources, median incomes for commercial divers hover around $53,990 per year, or $25.96 per hour. But many divers earn less, and entry-level jobs often pay minimum wage. Also, some divers, especially saturation divers, earn a lot more—a whole lot more, especially in busy years. But—and this is just my opinion, having been a commercial diver and having done other things—anyone with the skills to earn good money as a commercial diver can earn more money in other fields.

10. Closing statement: Commercial diving is a tough career, but it can be a very rewarding career.

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