Voice actor — 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): Musicians and Singers · Talent Directors · Choreographers · Music Directors and Composers · Poets, Lyricists and Creative Writers · Producers and Directors · Dancers · Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
In the official classification#
Actors
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Job Zone 1–2: very little to some preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Actors
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Actor
Fit with this page: broader than this page
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 27-2011.00 (Actors). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessVery important
- CoordinationImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- PersuasionImportant
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- NegotiationSomewhat important
- InstructingSomewhat important
Knowledge
- English LanguageVery important
- Fine ArtsVery important
- Communications and MediaVery important
- PsychologyImportant
- Sociology and AnthropologyImportant
- Sales and MarketingImportant
Work activities
- Thinking CreativelyExtremely important
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsVery important
- Getting InformationVery important
- Performing for or Working Directly with the PublicVery important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesVery important
- Performing General Physical ActivitiesImportant
Abilities
- Oral ExpressionVery important
- MemorizationVery important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Speech ClarityVery important
- OriginalityVery important
Essential skills
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Active ListeningVery important
- Critical ThinkingImportant
- Active LearningImportant
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 6 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 4 match at least one. 1 are work O*NET does not describe yet. 1 are not in O*NET's list for this occupation. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Narrating audiobooks and e-learningInform viewers, listeners, or audiences.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Communicating with People Outside the Organization · O*NET 31.0Entertain public with comedic or dramatic performances.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Performing for or Working Directly with the Public · O*NET 31.0
- Performing characters for animation and gamesEntertain public with comedic or dramatic performances.O*NET's activity is broader · Performing for or Working Directly with the Public · O*NET 31.0
- Commercials, promos and phone systemsPromote products, activities, or organizations.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Selling or Influencing Others · O*NET 31.0
- Dubbing into other languagesNone of the activities O*NET lists for this occupation covers this task.
- Deciding who may copy your voiceO*NET's activity lists do not describe this work yet. This site judges it to be emerging work.
- Auditions, direction and the home studioAudition for roles.covers part of this task · Performing for or Working Directly with the Public · O*NET 31.0Collaborate with others to determine technical details of productions.covers part of this task · Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Video editor
Tasks O*NET proposes to add#
O*NET's analysts propose new or reworded task statements for future data collection, drawing on what surveyed workers write in, research into new technologies and professional associations. They are candidates, not yet part of the rated task list, and they say nothing about whether automation is involved. This site does not fold them into its own task judgements.
- Create self-recordings to audition for roles.New task · 2026-08 · from occupational experts · O*NET 31.0
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
AB-2602 Contracts against public policy: personal or professional services: digital replicas
Labor Code section 927 · defines · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) → Deciding who may copy your voice
2024-09-17 · the record →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: 2 backed by a verified event, 4 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, 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.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- 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.