Business & Finance

Cost Estimators

Prepare cost estimates for product manufacturing, construction projects, or services to aid management in bidding on or determining price of product or service.

Sector: Business & Finance
Preparation: Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed
O*NET code: 13-1051.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Getting Information

central to the job — rated 91/100 for importance.
Analyzing Data or Information

central to the job — rated 89/100 for importance.
Working with Computers

central to the job — rated 89/100 for importance.
Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of Products, Events, or Information

central to the job — rated 87/100 for importance.
Making Decisions and Solving Problems

a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

a major part of the work — rated 82/100 for importance.

Prepare cost estimates for product manufacturing, construction projects, or services to aid management in bidding on or determining price of product or service. May specialize according to particular service performed or type of product manufactured.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Mathematics

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Reading Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Speaking

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Mathematics

Needed at expert level (82/100), and rated 85/100 for importance.
Economics and Accounting

Needed at a high level (69/100), and rated 74/100 for importance.
Computers and Electronics

Needed at a high level (62/100), and rated 63/100 for importance.
Engineering and Technology

Needed at a solid working level (55/100), and rated 60/100 for importance.

Abilities

Inductive Reasoning

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 78/100 for importance.
Mathematical Reasoning

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Oral Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Oral Expression

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

A four-year bachelor's degree is the usual entry ticket.

Experience

Two to four years of related work, internships or research on top of the degree.

Training

Most of the learning happens before you are hired, not after.

What it pays

These are typical finance compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Cost Estimators specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

Goldman · JP Morgan · KKR

$150k – $400k+

Regional Banks & Funds

$85k – $130k

Credit Unions & Local Firms

$55k – $85k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

Most of the day happens at a screen.From “Working with Computers”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”
You own decisions rather than execute someone else’s.From “Making Decisions and Solving Problems”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Cost Estimators. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

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Ten questions, about 90 seconds. You get your match against Cost Estimators and 782+ other real careers — with the reasoning shown.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.