What does a Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Ga
actually do all day?
top skill Operation and Controlcore tasks 6median pay $67,890AI exposure 0/100
Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas is deadline-driven, on your feet, people-heavy work. Precision matters a lot here.
What this job actually does all day
The representative tasks O*NET analysts recorded for this role — not a glossy job ad, the real work.
- Train crews, and introduce procedures to make drill work more safe and effective.
- Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes.
- Count sections of drill rod to determine depths of boreholes.
- Push levers and brake pedals to control gasoline, diesel, electric, or steam draw works that lower and raise drill pipes and casings in and out of wells.
- Connect sections of drill pipe, using hand tools and powered wrenches and tongs.
- Maintain records of footage drilled, location and nature of strata penetrated, materials and tools used, services rendered, and time required.
Skills & environment
Bars are O*NET importance/intensity ratings, scaled 0–100 so you can compare at a glance.
The skills it demands most
What the environment feels like
Deadline pressure: constant deadline pressureConflict & friction: moderateNeed to be exact: precision is criticalTime spent sitting: mostly on your feet / movingContact with people: constantly dealing with people
Go deeper on this role
How this is built. Tasks, skills, and work-environment ratings come from the
U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET occupational analysis — job analysts survey real workers, so this is the
closest thing to "what the job is actually like" in public data. Skill scores are O*NET Importance
ratings (0–5) and environment measures are Context ratings (0–5), both rescaled to 0–100 here for
easy reading. This task-and-skill detail comes straight from the O*NET database — it's
pulled straight from the survey, not invented. Figures describe the typical role, not any one person's job.
