Foley Artist
NicheAlso known as: Sound Effects Artist, Foley Performer, Foley Walker
Create and perform custom sound effects synchronized to on-screen action for films, TV shows, and video games using everyday objects and creativity.
Salary Range
The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for foley artists.
About 1 in 20 reaches this level
Only ~200-400 active Foley artists work in the US (no dedicated BLS code — folds into Sound Engineering Technicians, SOC 27-4014); roughly 5% — the 10-20 leads/supervisors at the major studio Foley stages — work on major studio features earning full IATSE scale (~$162K/yr in NYC) (est., no dedicated BLS code).
Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.
How to Become One
No formal certification required. Learn through apprenticeships at post-production studios. Build a demo reel showcasing sound design skills for film and television.
For more information: Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) ↗
Cost to Qualify
None of these has a required credential, licence, or accrediting body. People get in through portfolios and apprenticeship-style mentorship under a working pro: foley artists and mastering engineers typically learn by assisting in studios and building a demo reel; food stylists build a portfolio, often via prior kitchen or culinary experience; water sommeliers typically come out of wine-sommelier or hospitality backgrounds. Commercial courses exist - the Fine Water Academy sells a Certified Water Sommelier course for $2,200, and there are various private audio-mastering certificates - but none of them is an industry requirement. Treat them as optional credibility-builders a student could pay for, not something they must pay for to get hired.
Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.
AI Risk Assessment
A Foley artist performs everyday sounds for film and TV in time with the picture: footsteps, rustling clothes, doors, props. There is no dedicated government job code. Foley falls under sound engineering technicians, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects to shrink 3% from 2025 to 2035. BLS expects technology, including AI, to let fewer technicians set up and run sound systems. That forecast covers the whole sound-tech group, not Foley in particular.
For Foley itself, AI is not close yet. CNBC reported in 2025 that companies are building software to generate Foley, but a professor at Loyola Marymount University said the results "lack these very subtle, specific variations", and expected lower-budget independent productions, not the major studios, to use it. Veteran Foley artists told CNBC that AI cannot copy the movement and emotion of an actor's performance. A 2025 Microsoft Research study also ranked sound engineering technicians near the bottom (622nd of 785) for how much AI chatbots can help with their work. That fits the rubric's "2 Low": AI may take the cheapest jobs, while the performance itself stays human.
The bigger threat is fewer films. The same Foley artists said Hollywood is "making fewer movies right now", and that streaming shows have smaller sound budgets and often go to smaller Foley houses. Few people do this full time, there is no college program, and newcomers break in through apprenticeships, so the way in is narrow whatever AI does.
What would change this score: AI-generated Foley becoming good enough that TV and streaming productions stop booking Foley artists would move this to 3.
Sources
Ratings reflect a 10-year outlook based on 2025-2026 research, weighted toward entry-level impact. Individual outcomes will vary.
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