Tier List ranking the best occupations in Project Zomboid. Let’s take a look at the why these occupations have advantages over others.
Occupation Tier List
| Tier | Occupation | Skills/Traits | Starting Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| S |  Veteran | Desensitized +2 Aiming +2 Reloading | -8 |
| S |  Lumberjack | Axe Man +2 Axe +1 Strength | 0 |
| A |  Police Officer | +3 Aiming +1 Nimble +2 Reloading | -4 |
| A |  Fire Officer | +1 Axe +1 Fitness +1 Sprinting +1 Strength | 0 |
| A | Unemployed | - | +8 |
| A |  Fitness Instructor | Nutritionist +3 Fitness +2 Sprinting | -6 |
| A |  Burglar | Burglar +2 Lightfooted +2 Nimble +2 Sneaking | -6 |
| B |  Repairman | +1 Carpentry +2 Maintenance +1 Short Blunt | -4 |
| B |  Mechanic | Amateur Mechanic +3 Mechanics +1 Short Blunt | -4 |
| B |  Carpenter | +3 Carpentry +1 Short Blunt | +2 |
| B |  Park Ranger | +1 Axe +1 Carpentry +2 Foraging +2 Trapping | -4 |
| C |  Security Guard | Night Owl +1 Lightfooted +2 Sprinting | -2 |
| C |  Construction Worker | +1 Carpentry +3 Short Blunt | -2 |
| C |  Engineer | +1 Carpentry +1 Electrical | -4 |
| D |  Metalworker | +3 Metalworking | -6 |
| D |  Burger Flipper | Cook +2 Cooking +1 Maintenance +1 Short Blade | +2 |
| D |  Nurse | +2 First Aid +1 Lightfooted | +2 |
| D |  Chef | Cook +3 Cooking +1 Maintenance +1 Short Blade | -4 |
| F |  Doctor | +3 First Aid +1 Short Blade | +2 |
| F |  Fisherman | +3 Fishing +1 Foraging | -2 |
| F |  Farmer | +3 Farming | +2 |
| F |  Electrician | +3 Electrical | -4 |
S-Tier
The Veteran and Lumberjack are the best combat occupations in Project Zomboid. Veteran has top tier builds for gun combat and Lumberjack is the best for melee combat builds.
Their exclusive traits complement perfectly with their combat based starting traits, allowing you to get bonus skill xp for essential combat skills.
Whilst the Desentitized trait is amazing to have it does cost 8 Points. Whilst Axe Man costs absolutely nothing, leaving you with more points to pick useful traits.
A-Tier
Police Officer is the next best thing when it comes to gun combat. Costing less points and granting the highest aiming.
Fitness (endurance, attack speed, push knockdown, block chance) and Strength (melee damage, carry capacity, block chance) starting skills are top tier as they are both extremely useful and are also some of the hardest skills to level in Project Zomboid.
Fire Officer has a point in both Fitness and Strength!
Unemployed is also a solid choice providing +8 starting points. You can pick the Athletic and Runner trait for the same cost of the Fitness Instructor occupation and start with 1 more Fitness at the cost of 1 less Sprinting.
Burglar is the best occupation for stealth builds. If you’d rather play Project Zomboid by avoiding fights this is the occupation to pick.
B-Tier
Repairman has points in Maintenance, a very useful trait that helps your melee weapons last longer. To get this as a starter trait otherwise would cost 8 Points (Handy).
The Amateur Mechanic trait is ok, but it’s not too hard to come across auto books. However the starting points are very good (bonus xp) as leveling Mechanics at higher levels can be quite tedious.
Both the Carpenter and Park Ranger are solid choices. All with levels in Carpentry which you will want to level if you end up base building.
However what puts Carpenter ahead is that its a low cost occupation (6 point difference).
C-Tier and D-Tier
Security Guard’s Night Owl trait can be good in single player however it requires the use of an alarm to take advantage of it (haven’t personally tried). But the points in Light footed and Sprinting are not bad.
Short Blunt and Electrical are just not great traits. Pushing Construction Worker and Engineer down to C-Tier.
Metalworking whilst is nice to have as its quite hard to level and is good for late game building defense the occupation Metalworker costs a whopping -6 Points for 3 levels in a single skill. Unfortunately starting skills have diminishing returns, you’re better off having less points in more skills.
Cooking and First Aid just aren’t that useful with First Aid being the worse of the two. In project Zomboid you’re trying to avoid injury completely. From zombies any injury has a chance of infecting you. If you get zombified no amount of First Aid will save you.
As for cooking there are just better skills to start with. Food is typically abundant in the beginning and whilst having Lv. 7 Cooking allows you to use rotten food, this really isn’t that useful until well into the game. Especially on single player where there’s more loot to go around.
F-Tier
Doctor and Electrician are some of the worst occupations in Project Zomboid. The pretty much offer nothing and are a complete waste of points.
First Aid and Electrical are basically useless. First Aid you don’t really want to or need to level. Electrical, well all you need is Lv. 1 Electrical to hot wire cars.
Fishing, Foraging and Farming are not great for a similar reason as to why Cooking is low tier. Food just isn’t a priority in the beginning and in the late game farming is one of the easier skills to level, you’ll find that you will have plenty of food.
