Line of Work FAQ

Yes. Line of Work is a free daily game: each day you name one U.S. job from the range of what its employees are paid in a year, plus clues about its median pay, how many people do it, how fast it is projected to grow, the education it takes and its field. You have eight guesses, and there are 509 jobs to choose from. The figures are annual wages of employees from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so they show a job’s pay range rather than one salary.

Study the pay range, then type any of the 509 jobs into the guess box and submit it. Each guess shows how its pay, number of jobs, growth, education and field compare with the hidden job, so every guess narrows the list. You have eight guesses.

From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pay is annual wages of employees from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025, at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles. The number of jobs, growth to 2035 and typical education come from the BLS Employment Projections for 2025–35. The data and method page has the details.

Of Line of Work’s 509 jobs, Cardiologist has the highest median, at $496,010 a year for employees in May 2025. Radiologist ($420,860) and Anesthesiologist ($391,490) follow. Doctors fill most of the top: 17 of the 19 jobs with a median of $200,000 or more are in healthcare, and the other two are Airline pilot and CEO. That is a ranking within Line of Work’s jobs, not of every occupation in the country.

Of Line of Work’s 509 jobs, Nurse practitioner has the fastest projected growth from 2025 to 2035, at 41.0 percent, followed by Solar installer (36.5 percent) and Data scientist (34.6 percent). For all jobs together, BLS projects growth of 3.5 percent.

Line of Work has 509 jobs, not every occupation. Five are left out because BLS publishes only hourly wages for them, and the game needs annual wages: actors; dancers; musicians and singers; disc jockeys; and entertainers and performers, all other. The 40 postsecondary teacher occupations are one job, College professor. Small occupations and catch-all “all other” categories are never a daily answer. Many jobs also answer to other titles, so try the name you would use.

Because Line of Work shows medians and percentiles across the whole country for employees in May 2025, not any one person’s pay. What you earn depends on your employer, your city, your experience and your hours, and half of a job’s employees earn more than its median and half earn less. The range from the 10th to the 90th percentile shows how far pay spreads.

Not in the pay. The wage figures cover employees only, so a job with many self-employed workers, such as Real estate agent, shows what its employees are paid. The Jobs clue is different: it counts the self-employed too.

The thin whisker runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile of pay, the box from the 25th to the 75th, and the bold mark is the median. The scale is logarithmic and the same for every job, from $10,000 to $1 million, so a range twice as high sits the same distance to the right wherever it starts.

Blue means a match, orange means close and grey (⚪ in the share grid) means a miss. Pay, jobs, growth and education show a simple up or down arrow for whether the hidden job’s figure is higher or lower than your guess; on education, up means more schooling. Field never has an arrow.

Field uses the government’s Standard Occupational Classification. Blue means both jobs are in the same minor group, such as Engineers, and orange means they share a major group, such as Engineering, but not a minor one. The field hint reveals the minor group’s title.

Line of Work has 509 jobs you can guess, spread across 22 major fields. Any of them can be a guess, and 296 of them can also be the job of the day.

A new daily puzzle unlocks at midnight in your own time zone. Everyone gets the same job on the same calendar date.

No. Hints never break a streak. Free hints add a light bulb to your shared result, while hints unlocked by watching an optional ad do not.

Yes. The archive lists every past daily puzzle. Archive rounds count toward your statistics, but only today’s puzzle extends your streak.

Yes. The daily puzzle, the archive and unlimited mode are all free to play, with no account required.

Line of Work is made by Guessday, an independent site of original daily guessing games. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

No. The figures are national pay ranges for employees as of May 2025 and projections to 2035, which describe a job in general rather than what a particular employer will pay you or what the job will be like. Line of Work is a game, not career advice.