10 Rarest jobs in 2025: Centuries-old traditions and niche industries

Last updated on September 23rd, 2025 at 06:43 am

Some jobs exist because of centuries-old traditions and others because of niche industries, remote communities and other reasons. Let’s take a look at 10 of the rarest jobs in 2025 – jobs that are extremely special and rare for the same reason. Also checkout the 10 Worst jobs in the world

For each job, explore the rarity of the role, the skills and training required, and the special risks linked to the role. To broaden your search, do check out our other releases on the most dangerous jobs, the hardest jobs and jobs that could cause the most burnout.

Rarest jobs Global Pay Scale

Job Title	Approximate Global Pay Scale (2025)
Lighthouse Keeper	$20,000 to $40,000 per year
Master Perfumer	$60,000 to $460,000 per year
Endangered-Language Field Linguist	$40,000 to $80,000 per year
Deep-Sea Submersible/ROV Pilot	$70,000 to $150,000 per year
Snake Venom Extractor	$25,000 to $60,000 per year
Historic-Instrument Restorer	$30,000 to $70,000 per year
Professional Falconer (licensed)	$30,000 to $60,000 per year
Professional Mourner	$15,000 to $30,000 per year
Field Volcanologist	$46,000 to $121,000 per year
Ice Road Trucker	$56,000 to $82,000 per year

10 Rarest jobs in 2025

1. Lighthouse keeper

Lighthouse keepers are part of one of the rarest jobs in 2025. People in this profession are responsible for maintaining and operating a lighthouse’s lights, fog signals and backup systems. They also need to perform routine maintenance of the lantern room.

Reason for rarity: Lighthouse keepers are quite rare in 2025 as most lighthouses are automated and remotely monitored. Only a handful of lighthouses still require human presence, especially in remote or heritage sites.

2. Master perfumer

Do you have the right nose to become a master perfumer? That’s the main requirement of this rare job. People in this profession are required to create and refine fragrances for perfumes, cosmetics and luxury brands by blending a number of aromatic compounds.

Reason for rarity: Becoming a master perfumer is similar to becoming a “nose”. Sounds tricky? This job demands a long period of apprenticeship and an extremely trained olfactory memory. These people are generally employed in major fragrance houses and bespoke perfume ateliers.

3. Endangered-language field linguist

Endangered-language field linguists or language documenters are quite rare these days. People in this special profession are responsible for travelling to small communities to record native speakers, make dictionaries and grammars, and do a lot more than that.

Reason for rarity: Language documenters hold a specialist academic role. There are thousands of languages across the globe but only a handful of funded positions to document each one in detail. That is main reason for this job being so rare.

4. Deep-sea submersible/ROV pilot

People in this rare profession are responsible for operating manned submersibles or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for scientific research, offshore industry inspections or safeguard missions and monitor systems.

Reason for rarity: This job demands high-cost equipment and specialised teams. Only a handful of missions require human-operated deep submersibles. These people could get paid a lot (depending on their experiences in the field).

5. Snake venom extractor

This is a dangerous role. Snake venom extractors are part of one of the rarest jobs in 2025. These people are responsible for safely extracting venom from different snakes across the globe for research, pharmaceutical purposes and other reasons.

Reason for rarity: This job is pretty rare. The main reasons are that the job is specialised, dangerous and requires proximity to venom production facilities (still quite less in number across the globe).

6. Historic-instrument restorer

Heard of this rare profession? Historic-instrument restorers are responsible for repairing, protecting and sometimes recreating historic musical instruments for musuems and performers. This is quite rare of a job.

Reason for rarity: This profession demands a lot of special skills and historical information. Only a handful of people in this field do this at the museum level. This job requires a lot of delicate and detail-oriented focus.

7. Professional falconer (licensed)

Quite a rare job in 2025, professional falconers need to train birds of prey for hunting and other purposes. These people are also sometimes required to offer educational demonstrations. This is a physically demanding job, too.

Reason for rarity: Falconry is regulated. It requires long apprenticeships and licences in multiple countries across the globe. Only a handful of people in 2025 practice falconry professionally. Therefore, this is one of the rarest jobs on the planet today.

8. Professional mourner

Heard of ceremonial lamenters? Professional mourners are responsible for performing ritualised lamenting at funerals and memorials. This is a practice seen in some cultures and traditions – sometimes hired to ensure public displays of grief.

Reason for rarity: Professional mourners are becoming quite rare these days. This is mainly because modern funerary customs continue to replace hired lamenters and this role is remaining only in specific cultural contexts.

9. Field volcanologist

Field volcanologists or eruption samplers are responsible for climbing to different volcanic sites across the globe to collect gas, ash and rock samples, install monitoring equipment and interrupt eruptive behaviour in real time.

Reason for rarity: Field volcanologists are immensely rare in 2025. This is because volcanic eruptions are episodic and dangerous – and that only a handful of scientists specialise in on-the-ground sampling at the time of eruptions.

10. Ice road trucker

Ice road truckers are part of one of the rarest of the rare jobs in 2025. People in this special profession are responsible for driving hefty trucks over frozen lakes and seasonal ice roads to deliver supplies to remote communities or resource sites.

Reason for rarity: The description of this job definitely highlights the reason, doesn’t it? Ice road truckers need to have extreme skills. They get meticulous survival training in cold conditions. It is also quite difficult to maintain the vehicles in sub-zero conditions.

Through this listing of 10 rarest jobs in 2025, it is expected that more attention can be brought to these professions that are special and quite difficult. These roles are persisting because of special requirements, cultural reasons, scientific needs or luxury markets. For more such interesting stories on Labour rights see here