💡 Why it matters: Great technology is useless if people cannot figure out how to use it, so companies need clear guides, help pages and instructions written by people who love words and tech.
🌍 Around the world
- United States: Jobs are projected to grow 1% from 2025 to 2035, slower than average (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
💰 What it can pay
🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Starting out
- ₦1M – ₦2.8M
- Mid-career
- ₦3M – ₦7M
- Senior
- ₦7M – ₦15M
≈ ₦250k – ₦583k a month mid-career. Indicative estimate by Incusim.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Typical starter to experienced salary (profile: Technical author). National Careers Service, 2026
🇺🇸 United States
Median pay; low and high are the 10th and 90th percentiles. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025
🇨🇦 Canada
Hourly wage low/median/high x 2,080 hours. Job Bank (Government of Canada), 2023-2024
Yearly pay before tax. UK, US and Canada figures come from the official sources named on each card. Nigeria has no official salary survey, so those are our indicative estimates. Real pay depends on the employer, the place, your skills and experience.
🛠️ What you actually do
- Write guides, help articles and instructions
- Document how software and systems work
- Interview engineers to understand their products
- Make diagrams and screenshots
- Keep documents updated as products change
⚡ Skills you'll need
- Clear writing
- Curiosity
- Tech understanding
- Attention to detail
- Empathy for readers
Get ready at school
🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Technical writing short courses and a writing portfolio
- Moving from journalism, teaching or customer support
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Move across from IT support, journalism or teaching
- Technical writing short courses with a writing portfolio
🇺🇸 United States
- Move across from engineering, journalism or customer support
- Write sample guides and open-source documentation
🇨🇦 Canada
- Co-op placements at tech or engineering firms
- Move across from support, teaching or journalism
🗺️ Your path to this career
- 1Practise explaining things simply
- 2Learn basics of tech through free courses
- 3Study English, communication or computing
- 4Write sample guides and publish them online
- 5Apply for junior writer or documentation roles
⏰ A day in the life
Engineers have launched a new payments tool. You interview one of them, try the tool yourself, write a simple how-to page with screenshots and then fix a confusing sentence a user reported.