Study Reveals Which Creative Hobbies Can Become Full-Time Careers

The October 2026 report on which creative hobbies can become your main job found that cooking gives hobbyists the best shot at turning their skill into full-time, paid work. As more people look for ways to make a living from what they already love doing, Embroidery Legacy set out to compare 23 creative hobbies against the U.S. jobs market, and to find which ones genuinely offer a path to full-time work.

Cooking ranks No. 1, giving hobbyists the best shot at turning their skill into a full-time job of any creative hobby.

Gardening and garden design offers far more job openings each year than any other creative hobby with strong odds of becoming a main job.

Animation and digital art pays a higher hourly wage than any other hobby in the top five, even as it ranks fifth overall.

The research matched 23 popular creative hobbies to the closest U.S. occupation they could realistically lead to, then scored each one on how likely it is to support someone as a full-time job. The study measured typical earnings, how many people in that occupation work full-time year-round, hourly wages, projected job growth, and how many openings come up each year. Those figures were combined into a single Main-Job Score out of 100, with hobbies then ranked from the strongest chance of becoming a full-time career to the weakest.

Here’s a look at the top 10 creative hobbies with the best potential to become full-time careers:

Creative Hobby	Main-job Score (0-100)	Median Annual Earnings (2024)	Share Working full-time Year-round	Median hourly wage, employees ( 2025)	Projected Job Growth, 2025-35 (%)	Job Openings per year, 2025-35
Cooking	100	$39,595	74.9%	$30	6.6	25,200
Interior decorating	83	$56,854	65.0%	$32	2.7	7,700
Graphic design	79	$52,793	73.8%	$30	-1.7	16,000
Gardening & garden design	76	$30,458	60.6%	$19	4.7	149,500
Animation & digital art	71	$40,610	59.0%	$49	-0.3	4,200
Filmmaking & video editing	71	$51,778	55.0%	$36	3.7	3,100
Creative writing	69	$58,884	60.5%	$37	-0.3	11,900
Woodworking	56	$40,610	78.8%	$22	-2.9	6,900
Fashion design	54	$45,077	50.0%	$39	0.1	2,500
Composing & songwriting	54	$40,610	51.6%	$35	1.2	4,200

You can access the complete research findings here.

1. Cooking

• Main-job score: 100, the highest of all 23 creative hobbies

• Median annual earnings: $39.6K, below the $50.8K all-worker median

• Share working full-time year-round: 74.9%, above the 72.1% all-worker average

• Projected job growth, 2025-35: 6.6%, the fastest-growing of all 23 matched occupations

• Job openings per year: 25.2K, the second-highest in the top 10

  
  

Cooking offers the strongest path from hobby to full-time career, matched here to chefs and head cooks and posting a Main-Job Score of 100 out of 100, the top mark among all 23 hobbies examined. Workers in that occupation earn a median of $39,595 a year, with 74.9% holding full-time, year-round work. The median hourly wage comes to $30.03, and the field is projected to grow 6.6% between 2025 and 2035. About 25,200 openings are expected each year over that span, and the role typically asks for only a high school diploma or its equivalent to get started. Chefs and head cooks account for about 220,300 jobs nationwide as of 2025. Cooking is not one of the activities tracked in the National Endowment for the Arts survey that several other creative hobbies are measured against.

2. Interior Decorating

Interior decorating ranks second, matched to interior designers, an occupation that pays considerably more than chefs and head cooks: a median of $56,854 a year. Its Main-Job Score comes to 83.0. Just 65% of interior designers work full-time year-round. Hourly pay runs to a median of $32.31, and projected growth through 2035 comes to 2.7%, with about 7,700 openings expected each year. Entry typically requires a bachelor's degree, and the occupation employs roughly 97,100 people nationwide as of 2025, the smallest workforce of any hobby in this top five.

3. Graphic Design

Graphic design comes in third, matched to graphic designers and carrying a Main-Job Score of 79.4, with projected job growth of -1.7% through 2035, a steeper decline than interior design's modest 2.7% gain. Median earnings for graphic designers come to $52,793 a year, and 73.8% of them work full-time on a year-round basis. Median pay works out to $30.27 an hour, and about 16,000 openings are expected each year even with that shrinking outlook. A bachelor's degree is the typical entry point, and the field employs about 253,100 people as of 2025. An estimated 10.7% of US adults, or roughly 27.5 million people, already do graphic design as a creative activity, working out to about 109 hobbyists for every job in the occupation.

4. Gardening and Garden Design

Gardening and garden design ranks fourth, matched to landscaping and groundskeeping workers, posting a Main-Job Score of 75.8 and far more job openings each year than graphic design: about 149,500 compared with graphic design's 16,000. Median earnings come to $30,458 a year, and 60.6% of people in that occupation hold steady, full-time positions. Median hourly earnings come to $18.82, and job growth through 2035 is projected at 4.7%. The role asks for no formal educational credential to enter, and nationwide, landscaping and groundskeeping work accounts for roughly 1.19 million jobs, by far the largest workforce of any hobby covered in this top five.

5. Animation and Digital Art

Animation and digital art rounds out the top five, matched to special effects artists and animators, with a Main-Job Score that reaches 71.0 and a median hourly wage of $49.06, well above landscaping and groundskeeping's $18.82. Median annual earnings come to $40,610, and just 59% of people in the field work full-time all year. The field is projected to shrink slightly, down 0.3% through 2035, with roughly 4,200 openings expected annually. Breaking in typically takes a bachelor's degree, and the occupation employs about 51,900 people nationwide, the smallest workforce among the top five. An estimated 4.5% of US adults, around 11.5 million people, already do animation or digital art as a creative activity, working out to roughly 223 hobbyists for every job in the field. Digital design skills can also extend beyond the screen. In machine embroidery, digitizing software turns artwork into stitch instructions that can be produced on apparel and other textile products, creating another path from digital creativity to physical products.

Jesse Deer from Embroidery Legacy commented on the study:

“Many creative careers don’t begin as careers at all. They start with someone learning a skill because they enjoy it, then discovering that other people value what they create. With the tools and platforms available today, that progression from hobbyist to paid creator is more accessible than it has ever been. We’ve also found that home-based creative businesses often do best when they focus on a specific niche within their hobby rather than trying to serve everyone.”