You run the programs a town actually uses: summer camp, the pool schedule, the senior center, the youth league.
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The median pay is about $36,560 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $27,600 at the lower end to about $50,410 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$300 to $50,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median for the group
$36,560
Bottom tenth
$27,600
Top tenth
$50,410
The national median for recreation workers is $36,560 a year. The bottom tenth earn $27,600 or less and the top tenth $50,410 or more (2025 federal wage survey). The survey counts all recreation workers together, so summer camp counselors and activity aides are in the same pool as full-time coordinators.
$31,780 a year or less
25% of recreation workers earn this or less, 2025
This is not a high paying field. Look at the whole package: public employers often add a pension and health coverage that a private job at the same salary will not.
$43,470 a year or more
25% of recreation workers earn this or more, 2025
The steadiest jobs are full-time posts in city and county parks and recreation departments, with a salary schedule, steps, health insurance and a retirement plan. Supervisor roles sit higher on the same schedule.
Roughly, all in
$300 to $50,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is starting as a program assistant or camp staff on a high school diploma and paying for short tickets such as CPR, first aid, lifeguarding and food handling, many of which employers cover anyway. The high end is a four year recreation management degree at a public university in your own state, which is what most city and county coordinator postings ask for. The Certified Park and Recreation Professional credential costs $275 for association members and $320 for everyone else, and it comes years later. The cheap door is real, but it mostly leads to seasonal work, and the permanent coordinator jobs usually want the degree.
Fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. If you end up working for a city, county or nonprofit, PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness) clears remaining federal loans after 10 years of qualifying payments, which fits this field better than almost any other.
Public pension
City and county staff are usually in a state or municipal retirement system.
Health coverage for the family
One of the main reasons people stay in local government at this salary.
Use of facilities at no charge
Pools, gyms, classes and rinks, usually for you and often for your household.
Predictable schedule in the off season
The summer is brutal, the winter is calm.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You can start at 16. Getting to coordinator takes a few years and usually a degree.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
Start working the seasonal jobs now: camp counselor, pool attendant, rec aide, youth sports official. Experience is the currency in this field.
Get the basic certifications
Days
CPR and first aid at a minimum, lifeguarding if you want pool hours. Short courses, often paid for by the employer.
Associate or bachelor's degree
2 to 4 years
Recreation management, parks and recreation, kinesiology, or a general degree with recreation experience. Most coordinator postings ask for a bachelor's.
Full-time program role
1 to 3 years
Program leader or specialist first, then coordinator once you have run things and supervised part-time staff.
Optional credential
After a degree plus experience
The CPRP (Certified Park and Recreation Professional) is not required anywhere, but some public employers list it as preferred.
Physical education and health
Sport rules, safety and how bodies of different ages actually work.
Business or accounting
A coordinator runs a budget, sets fees and reports on numbers.
Psychology
Programs are for toddlers, teenagers, adults with disabilities and people in their eighties, all in one week.
English and public speaking
Flyers, newsletters, council presentations and angry phone calls.
No state licenses recreation coordinators, and anyone can hold the title. What employers actually check is a background check, which is required everywhere you will be around children, plus current CPR and first aid cards and whatever specific certifications your programs need, like lifeguarding or food handling. The CPRP (Certified Park and Recreation Professional) credential from the National Recreation and Park Association is voluntary and is the closest thing the field has to a professional standard.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Lifeguard and water safety instructor
Aquatics is the biggest staffing headache most departments have, so this makes you immediately useful.
Youth sports coaching and officiating
Leagues run on people who can do both.
Inclusion and adaptive recreation training
Running programs that work for participants with disabilities is a real skill and a hiring advantage.
CPRP (Certified Park and Recreation Professional)
Voluntary, costs $275 for association members, and is listed as preferred on a lot of municipal job postings.
A commercial driver's license
Departments that own a bus or a van need someone who can legally drive it.
A second language
Programs only serve a community if the community can read the flyer.
Event and social media skills
Half of a coordinator's job is getting people to show up.
Grant writing
Recreation budgets are thin, so the person who can win a grant becomes valuable fast.
Municipal parks and recreation is the obvious employer, but the same skills run activity programs in senior living and nursing homes, on military bases through morale and welfare services, in school-age childcare, in resorts and on cruise ships, and across nonprofits. Federal agencies also hire recreation staff, and those jobs are posted on USAJOBS (the official federal hiring site). Pay and stability vary a lot between them, so it is worth looking outside your own town before deciding the field pays badly.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Morning at a desk: registration numbers, a schedule that broke because an instructor quit, an order for soccer balls, an incident report from yesterday. Late morning out in a facility checking that a program is actually running properly. Afternoon on the summer camp hiring you should have started in February. Evening you are at the gym for a youth league night, greeting parents, fixing the scoreboard and locking up at nine. Summer is chaos. February is planning.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
O*NET (Occupational Information Network) counted about 346,900 recreation workers in 2025 and projects average growth, with about 67,000 openings a year. High turnover in seasonal jobs is a big part of that.
The federal survey group for this job lists recreation coordinator alongside activity aide, activities director and recreation supervisor, which is why the pay range runs from seasonal wages to supervisor salaries.
Parks and recreation ends up running senior meals, after school care, adaptive sports, cooling centers in a heat wave and shelters after a storm. The job description says programs. In practice it is whatever the town needs that week.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Social services first, then the rest of the field. See every career in community and public service.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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