Video Editor

Career Area: Design, Media, and Writing

Occupation Group: Visual Design

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Video Editor earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $40,809

*The salaries depicted here are representative of the range of salaries posted in job listings over the past year. Living wage in North Carolina is $30,000.

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $45,688

*The salaries depicted here are representative of the range of salaries posted in job listings over the past year. Living wage in North Carolina is $30,000.

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Edits films, primarily smaller film productions or video recordings of events. Edits film for review, and collaborates with directors and producers to create a final production. Uses specialized editing software. May supervise editing assistants.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

LocationGrowth
North Carolina72+18%
Nationwide4056+13.9%

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Video Editor is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

  • Editing: Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information.
  • Creativity: Mental characteristic that allows a person to think outside of the box, which results in innovative or different approaches to a particular task.
  • Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
  • Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.
  • Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

  • Video Editing: Video editing is the manipulation and arrangement of video images.
  • Adobe Premiere: Working experience of Adobe Premiere, which is a timeline-based video editing app developed by Adobe Systems and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program.
  • Adobe Aftereffects: Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Systems and used in the post-production process of film making and television production.
  • Adobe Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for macOS and Windows.
  • Adobe Acrobat: Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format (PDF).

Distinguishing Skills

Any Video Editor that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

  • Media Production: Media production includes full-time and freelance workers in any field of communication, entertainment or information that reaches a wide range of people. Media production refers to the professional creation of such content.
  • Digital Video: Digital video is a representation of moving visual images in the form of encoded digital data.
  • Sound Design: Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements.
  • Multimedia: Multimedia is content that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, video and interactive content.
  • Avid Media Composer: Avid Media Composer is a film and video non-linear editing system (NLE) and is the flagship product of Avid Technology.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Experience Required%
0 to 2 years45%
3 to 5 years48%
6 to 8 years5%

Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.

Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

  • Video Editor
  • Freelance Video Editor
  • Junior Video Editor
  • Senior Video Editor
  • Assembling

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