LO
Air traffic controller — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Airfield Operations Specialists · Commercial Pilots · Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters · Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors · Traffic Technicians · Locomotive Engineers · Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance · Aviation Inspectors
In the official classification#
Air Traffic Controllers
Fit with this page: same job
Job Zone 3: medium preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 53-2021.00 (Air Traffic Controllers). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Judgment and Decision MakingVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingVery important
- CoordinationVery important
- Time ManagementVery important
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Operations MonitoringImportant
- Systems AnalysisImportant
- InstructingImportant
Knowledge
- TransportationVery important
- English LanguageVery important
- Public Safety and SecurityVery important
- Education and TrainingVery important
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- GeographyImportant
Work activities
- Making Decisions and Solving ProblemsExtremely important
- Identifying Objects, Actions, and EventsExtremely important
- Getting InformationExtremely important
- Monitoring Processes, Materials, or SurroundingsVery important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesVery important
- Processing InformationVery important
Abilities
- Problem SensitivityExtremely important
- Oral ComprehensionExtremely important
- Oral ExpressionExtremely important
- Selective AttentionExtremely important
- Deductive ReasoningVery important
- Inductive ReasoningVery important
Essential skills
- Active ListeningVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- MonitoringVery important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 6 task judgements are for: 3 backed by a verified event, 3 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Four kinds of source, and each block says which: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.