MOS to Civilian Job Translator: Free 2026 Chart (All Branches)

Some military jobs walk straight into a civilian paycheck. Others need a rewrite first. The question you actually want answered is simple. Does mine transfer, and to what?

This page answers that for all six branches. Marine Corps and Army MOS codes. Navy and Coast Guard ratings. Air Force AFSC codes. Space Force specialty codes. Each chart gives you three things. The civilian job titles that hire your background. A typical pay range. And the federal GS series that covers the same work.

That last column is the part most charts skip. Plenty of veterans compare private sector offers without ever checking the federal number for the same job. You should see both before you pick a lane.

Does Your Military Job Transfer? Three Honest Answers

Almost every military job transfers. They just do not all transfer the same way. After watching a lot of veterans work through this, the codes tend to fall into three groups.

Group one transfers directly. The civilian version of the job already exists. It uses most of the same skills. IT, medical, aviation maintenance, logistics, law enforcement, heavy equipment, and firefighting all live here. Your training maps onto a real job title with very little translating.

Group two transfers with a bridge. The skill is real and in demand. But a civilian employer usually wants a license or a card first. A truck driver needs a CDL. A medic headed for ambulance work needs a state EMT or paramedic card. Every state credentials that work, some by license and some by certification. A mechanic may need ASE certs. The work transfers. The paperwork is the gap.

Group three transfers as leadership and operations. Combat arms lands here most often. There is no civilian rifleman job. But there is a job for someone who ran a team of twelve. Someone who managed a million dollars of gear. Someone who planned complex operations and never lost a person to a preventable injury. That transfers into operations, security, safety, and site supervision every day.

If your code sits in group three, your resume does more work than your code does. Our guide on military to civilian job titles shows how to name the job. Write it so a civilian recruiter gets it right away.

How to Read These Charts

Four columns, and each one has a job.

• Code: your MOS, rating, or AFSC as the service currently lists it.
• Civilian titles that transfer: the exact titles to type into a job board. Search the title, not your code.
• Pay range: a range built around Bureau of Labor Statistics median pay for the mapped jobs. The figures use the May 2025 national wage release. BLS refreshes it every year.
• Federal GS series: the Office of Personnel Management series covering the same work in government.

Pay first. The ranges reflect mid-career pay, not your first week. Location moves them hard. An active clearance or a stacked certification can push you above the top. A rural market can push you below the bottom. Treat the range as a starting point. Then check current listings in your city. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook covers most of these jobs, and it is free.

Now the GS column, because that is the one people skip. A GS series is a four digit code the government uses to classify work. GS-2210 is Information Technology Management. GS-0132 is Intelligence. GS-0083 is Police. Searching USAJOBS as a veteran by series pulls up jobs a keyword search buries.

From the hiring side of the desk on positions in my federal chain, one pattern held. The resumes that moved up were written against the series and the announcement. Not against a job title. The series tells you what the government thinks the job is. Your resume should answer that, in that language. Check any series against the OPM classification standards. Then see what each grade pays on the OPM salary and wage tables.

One caveat on that column. Hands-on federal trade jobs are often graded under the Federal Wage System, not the General Schedule. Mechanics, electricians, and equipment operators frequently show up as WG jobs. The series below is the closest General Schedule match. That is usually the supervisory or technical version of the work.

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Marine Corps MOS to Civilian Jobs

Marines ask this question more than anyone. That tracks. The Corps has a high share of combat arms codes. Combat arms is where the translation feels hardest. It is also where the leadership premium is biggest. So do not read a short title list as a small opportunity.

Two Marine notes worth your time. The 0311 path leans on your billet history more than your MOS. Fire team leader, squad leader, and section leader time is the part employers buy. Our 0311 Rifleman civilian career guide covers it. And the 0631 Network Administrator path is one of the strongest direct transfers in the Corps.

Aviation supply Marines usually undersell the scale of what they ran. If you tracked parts against aircraft readiness, that is supply chain analysis. The 6672 Aviation Supply Specialist career page breaks that down further. For wording specific to the Corps, use our Marine Corps resume and MOS translation guide.

Army MOS to Civilian Jobs

The Army has the widest MOS list of any branch. This chart covers the highest volume codes. If yours is not here, find the closest match by function. The mapping usually holds.

Signal and cyber soldiers should read the 25B Information Technology Specialist career guide. That experience often qualifies for GS-2210 jobs at grades people assume are out of reach. Medics should start with the 68W Combat Medic Specialist page. State licensing usually decides your timeline more than your resume does.

Want a deeper Army breakdown? We have a full piece on Army MOS civilian careers that transfer. There is also an Army resume and MOS translation guide.

Navy Rating to Civilian Jobs

The Navy uses ratings rather than numeric codes. Ratings are usually easier for civilians to read. Hospital Corpsman and Electrician's Mate say most of what they mean. I came out of the Navy as a Diver. That one needed more explaining than any of them.

That Navy Diver row needs an honest caveat. The Occupational Outlook Handbook has no commercial diver profile. The BLS wage survey does. It put the median at $72,990 for May 2025. Diving pay still swings hard by sector. Inland civil work, offshore oil and gas, and shipyard work all pay differently. Treat one national number as a rough anchor. The Navy Diver civilian career guide covers the sectors one at a time.

Air Force AFSC to Civilian Jobs

Air Force codes change more often than the other branches. Check yours against the current enlisted classification directory before you print anything. Several common codes have been merged or renamed in the last few years.

Air traffic control deserves a flag. It may be the highest paying direct transfer in the military. The bottom of the chart row covers airport operations and dispatch work. Those are separate, lower paying occupations. BLS put the median for controllers themselves at $148,080 in May 2025. The catch is the FAA. It hires on its own pay band system, not the General Schedule. Application windows also open and close on their own schedule. The 1C1X1 Air Traffic Control career guide covers the timing.

Coast Guard Rating to Civilian Jobs

Coast Guard ratings carry an advantage the other branches often do not. Much of the work already sits under civilian regulatory frameworks. So a credential you earned in uniform may already be recognized outside.

Spent time on the law enforcement side? The Maritime Enforcement Specialist career guide lists the federal agencies that hire the background directly.

Space Force Specialty Codes

Space Force runs on Space Force Specialty Codes, usually written as SFSC. Guardians hold one of several enlisted codes. Four common ones follow. 5S0X1 Space Systems Operations. 5C0X1 Cyber Operations. 5I0X1 All Source Analyst. 5I2X1 Cryptologic Analyst. Guardians who transferred from the Air Force may still recognize an old AFSC. The service published a crosswalk between the two systems.

Practical advice for Guardians. Put the current SFSC on your resume. Mention the legacy AFSC once, in parentheses, if you held it. Recruiters searching resume databases are often still hunting the older code. That is what they learned. Naming both costs you nothing and gives recruiters two ways to find you.

The civilian mapping for most Guardians follows the Air Force chart above. Cyber and intelligence work maps to GS-2210 and GS-0132. Satellite and ground systems operations map into aerospace, defense contracting, and systems engineering support.

When Your Code Retires, Merges, or Gets Renamed

This trips up more veterans than anything else. The services retire, merge, and rename codes constantly. That chart you found on some random website may be years out of date. So may the job board that indexed your resume.

A few real examples. The Army merged multichannel transmission systems operator work into 25H. The Air Force moved its cyber systems career field out of the old 3D series into 1D7. The Marine Corps deleted its construction wireman line. That work now runs under 0633 Network Transport Technician. Marine contracting is now titled Operational Contract Support Specialist. Marine supply administration is now Supply Chain Specialist.

Three rules that handle all of it.

1. Verify against the current service directory. The Air Force enlisted classification directory is current. So is the Marine Corps MOS manual and the Army MOS pamphlet. Third party MOS databases keep retired codes online forever.
2. Search both codes. If your field was renamed after you served, list the code you held and the code it became. Recruiters may search either one.
3. Never let the code carry the resume. Write the work instead. Anyone can understand managing a maintenance schedule for 40 vehicles across three shifts.

Turning a Chart Row Into an Interview

A chart tells you where to aim. It does not get you hired. Three moves close that gap.

Pick one title and commit for a few weeks. Applying to five civilian titles with one generic resume usually produces silence. Pick the title with the strongest match. Tailor to it and work that lane. Then pick the next one.

Put the civilian title first and your code second. Write "Systems Administrator (25B)" rather than leading with the code. Military aware recruiters still find the code. Everyone else can read the title. Applicant tracking systems rank on keywords from the posting, so the civilian title has to be there.

Apply to both sides at once. The GS column exists so you can run both searches in parallel. They move at different speeds and reward different resumes. A federal resume carries more detail, including hours per week and supervisor contact. It still targets two pages.

Want the pay side worked out in more depth? We have a breakdown of what your MOS is worth in civilian salary data. Prefer a view by skill category? See military to civilian career paths by branch.

What to Do Next

Find your row. Write down three things. The civilian title that fits best. The pay range for your market. And the GS series. That is your target set. Then build one resume against the civilian title and one against the series. They are not the same document.

Our military resume builder handles the translation from military wording to civilian wording. It is free to start. Still deciding between civilian titles? The jobs for veterans by MOS guide helps you narrow it down.

Two more places to look. See how BMR translates military wording, or open the career pages for your branch.