Property and grounds
Locksmithing
You control who gets into what. Residential, automotive, commercial master key systems, safes, electronic access. It is the smallest trade on this list and the one where being genuinely good makes you nearly irreplaceable in a market.
A day in it
- Van stocked with blanks, cylinders, pinning kit, and the key machine.
- First call is a lockout. Ten minutes of work and somebody's whole morning is saved.
- Second is a rekey on a house that just sold. Six cylinders, all keyed alike.
- Pin them at the tailgate, install, test every door twice.
- Lunch, then a commercial job — master key system for a small office building.
- That one is a chart problem before it's a lock problem. You design the hierarchy first.
- Afternoon ends with a safe that a customer inherited and has no combination for.
What it pays
- Starting out
- $34,750
- Median
- $50,490
- Experienced
- $79,340
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024 (national). Starting out = 10th percentile. Median = 50th. Experienced = 90th. Annual. Georgia figures to be added alongside national. SOC 49-9094. Real numbers only — never estimated, never rounded up.
How you get in
- —Apprentice with a working locksmith. This trade still runs mostly on that.
- —ALOA training and certification is the recognized credential.
- —Automotive key programming is a separate skill and a large share of the money.
- —The Mustard Seed covers training, certification, and your first pinning kit and machine.
What you need before you start
- —A clean background. You are being handed access to people's homes and businesses.
- —Fine motor skill and patience for small mechanical work.
- —On-call hours — lockouts do not happen at convenient times.
Someone doing it
Photograph, first name, age, and three or four sentences in their own words — to be supplied.
What it turns into
Independent locksmith with a van, quickly. Commercial access control and institutional master keying are the high end, and electronic access is where the trade is going.
Want to talk to somebody doing this?
Two fields. A person reads it and texts you back.