All the Minecraft Villager Jobs Explained

In Short
  • There are a total of 15 villager jobs in Minecraft, with nitwit being useless and unemployed being useless until they get a job.
  • The rest are: armorer, butcher, cartographer, cleric, farmer, fisherman, fletcher, leatherworker, librarian, mason, shepherd, toolsmith and weaponsmith.
  • These mobs can trade food items, various building blocks, weapons, tools, potion ingredients, decorative blocks, progression-relevant items and more.

All of the necessary items and blocks can be provided by a single in-game mob, villagers. These passive mobs are your best friends, thanks to trading and items each of them spawns with. But not all villagers are made equal. That’s why, in this article, we explain all the Minecraft villager jobs in the simplest way. All you need to do is find a village in Minecraft and start interacting with the villagers. With that said, let’s begin!

A Complete List of Minecraft Villager Jobs (2024)

The villager jobs stay the same in both Java and Bedrock editions. You can use the table above to discover the job that interests you the most, along with the craftable blocks that the villagers use to perform their job.

1. Armorer

  • Armorer villagers from all different biomes
  • Crafting recipe for a blast furnace

Job Site Block: Blast Furnace
Job Brief: Trades iron, armor, and chain

Going alphabetically, the first job that villagers can have is that of an armorer. As the name tells, an armorer is responsible for trading armor pieces. This villager job is centered around a blast furnace, which is used to melt ores.

As for trading, you can get pieces of armor, a bell, and a shield from them. Not to forget, an expert-level armorer can even provide you with enchanted diamond armor pieces.

2. Butcher

  • Butcher villagers from all different biomes
  • Smoker crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Smoker
Job Brief: Offers cooked meat and stew

The butcher is responsible for providing cooked meat and rabbit stew. At times, it even offers eight cooked chicken pieces for a single emerald. And if you are unable to find other food items, butchers are the most reliable source of food in the game.

The utility block of a butcher in Minecraft is the smoker. You can use this table for cooking meat in the game faster than a regular furnace.

3. Cartographer

  • Cartographer villagers from all different biomes
  • Cartography table crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Cartography Table
Job Brief: Trades maps, frames, and banners

Cartographers, at times, can be the “most expensive villagers” in the game. But the help they provide is worth it. For starters, you can get empty maps, frames, and banners from them. That’s not all, though. They also provide ocean and woodland explorer maps.

You can use these specialized maps to locate ocean monuments, woodland mansions, and buried treasure in the game. The job site or utility block for this job is the cartography table. It is mainly used to create maps in the game.

4. Cleric

  • Cleric villagers from all different biomes
  • Brewing stand crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Brewing Stand
Job Brief: Offers magical items, Redstone dust, and even Bottle o’ Enchanting

Clerics provide you with rare magical items in Minecraft. Among all the villager jobs, trading with clerics usually leads you to get the most interesting items. You can obtain Redstone dust, lapis lazuli, glowstone, ender pearls, and even Bottle o’ Enchanting from the clerics.

And even if you don’t find a cleric in your village, you can easily assign a village this job by creating a brewing stand. Our guide linked here will help you get started in no time.

5. Farmer

  • Farmer villagers from all different biomes
  • Composter crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Composter
Job Brief: Offers high-level food items and ingredients

You cannot talk about villagers or Minecraft villager jobs without focusing on farmers. They are the most popular and common types of villagers in the game. Farmers offer high-level food items and even a few ingredients to some of the best Minecraft potions.

That means you can trade bread, pie, apple, cookies, cake, and stew at lower levels. Meanwhile, expert farmers also offer golden carrots and glistering melon slices. They usually spawn next to a composter, which is great for creating bone meal in the game.

6. Fisherman

  • Fisherman villagers from all different biomes
  • Crafting recipe for a barrel

Job Site Block: Barrel
Job Brief: Offers cooked seafood, campfire, and even an enchanted fishing rod

Fishermen are a comparatively newer addition to the game. In terms of fish, they offer you cooked salmon, cooked cod, and a bucket of cod too. Beyond that, you can also get a campfire and an enchanted fishing rod from them.

Even if you aren’t a fan of fishing, a fisherman allows you to trade fish for emeralds which you can use with villagers having other Minecraft jobs. Their utility block is the barrel, which is great for storing items.

7. Fletcher

  • Fletcher villagers from all different biomes
  • Fletching table crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Fletching Table
Job Brief: Trades arrows, flint, bow, and crossbows

Fletcher is one of the least known villager jobs. But, if you have a good aim, they can be your biggest asset. You can get arrows, flint, bows, and crossbows from low-level fletchers. Meanwhile, upper-level fletchers provide enchanted bows, enchanted crossbows, and even tipped arrows.

Unfortunately, their job site block is a fletching table, which doesn’t serve any secondary function. We can only hope for Minecraft to allow us to use it in the future.

8. Leatherworker

  • Leatherworker villagers from all different biomes
  • Cauldron crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Cauldron
Job Brief: Trades leather armor, horse armor, and saddle

Once popular, leatherworkers nowadays are not considered as useful as they once were in earlier Minecraft versions. That’s because they mostly offer leather armor pieces and leather horse armor. Neither of these is used by most players. The only useful item you can get from them is a horse saddle, but that too is only from a master-level leatherworker.

However, their job site block is a cauldron, and it is really useful. You can use the cauldron to store water, lava, or powder snow. If you are on the Bedrock edition, it even lets you store dyed water and potions.

9. Librarian

  • Librarian villagers from all different biomes
  • Crafting recipe for a lectern

Job Site Block: Lectern
Job Brief: Offers enchanted books, compass, clocks, name tags, and more

If you know how to use enchanted books in Minecraft, you will love villagers with the librarian job in Minecraft. They are one of the easiest ways to get enchanted books in the game. But that’s not all.

You can also get bookshelves, lanterns, glass blocks, clocks, compasses, and even name tags from them. Their job site block is the lectern, which is useful in multiplayer mode and serves as a redstone component. It enables you to place books on it so that multiple players can read them at the same time.

10. Mason or Stone Mason

  • Mason villagers from all different biomes
  • Stonecutter crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Stonecutter
Job Brief: Trades different types of bricks, terracotta, and quartz

Our next entry to village jobs is the only one with multiple names. This profession is called mason in Minecraft Java edition and stonemason in the Bedrock edition. The job of a mason is to provide a variety of stones. You can trade for different types of bricks, variants of polished stone blocks, and dripstone blocks at lower levels.

At higher levels, you can get colored terracotta, glazed terracotta, block of quartz, and quartz pillars too. Mason’s job site block, the stonecutter, is used to craft stone-related blocks in various sizes. You can make the most out of the stonecutter using the best Minecraft seeds to build cities.

11. Nitwit

Nitwit villagers from all different biomes

Job Site Block: N/A
Job Brief: aesthetic value, no other value

Not to hurt any player’s feelings, but nitwits in Minecraft are useless. You can’t trade or even assign a job to nitwits. Don’t confuse them with the unemployed villagers that you can assign a job. The developers only included nitwits in the game as a healthy reminder of the aesthetic-only value that the Minecraft world holds for many.

12. Shepherd

  • Shepherd villagers from all different biomes
  • Loom crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Loom
Job Brief: Offer decorative items like colored wool, carpets, and paintings

Unlike the real world, the shepherd’s job is one of the few non-survival-oriented Minecraft villager jobs. They mostly offer decorative items like carpets, colored wool, banners, and paintings. However, you can get shears and beds from them too. Most players usually go to shepherds only for the paintings.

The job site block of the shepherd is much more interesting than the job itself. You can use the loom to create unique patterns on banners with an intriguing in-game editor.

13. Toolsmith 

  • Toolsmith villagers from all different biomes
  • Crafting recipe for a smithing table

Job Site Block: Smithing Table
Job Brief: Trades tools like pickaxes, shovels, and hoes

As you might have guessed, you can trade with toolsmiths to obtain various tools, including an axe, pickaxe, shovel, and hoe in Minecraft. You can even get enchanted tools at higher levels of trading. Moreover, at times, toolsmiths also offer bells while trading.

Not to forget, you can use the smithing table to upgrade diamond tools to netherite tools, making them the strongest tools in Minecraft. Moreover, you can make netherite armor and a netherite sword, so make sure to follow our linked guide on how to get netherite and netherite upgrade.

14. Unemployed

Unemployed villagers from all different biomes

Job Site Block: use any block (or table) to assign a job
Job Brief: can take up any practical job on this list

Unemployed villagers are practically nitwits until you assign them a job. All baby villagers grow into unemployed villagers and remain the same until they find a job site block, which you can choose to craft and put in front of them. Additionally, if you break a job site block, an employed villager will turn into an unemployed one.

However, you can use this technique to reassign a villager to a different job and get different trades. Though keep in mind that once you trade with a villager at least once, you can no longer reset their trades.

15. Weaponsmith

  • Weaponsmith villagers from all different biomes
  • Grindstone crafting recipe

Job Site Block: Grindstone
Job Brief: Offers minerals, enchanted weapons, and bells

Finally, our villager jobs list reaches its end with weaponsmith, which is one of the most desirable jobs. If you are doing a speedrun in Minecraft, weaponsmith chests are even better than their trades. You can find obsidian, weapons, and iron in these chests.

As for trading, they offer swords and axes both with and without enchantments. You can also get a bell from them if you need it. Furthermore, you can use their grindstone to repair tools and weapons. It is also the most reliable tool to remove enchantments in Minecraft.

Bonus: Wandering Trader

Wandering trader and their llamas

Wandering traders aren’t essentially villagers. But that’s only because they don’t spawn in a village. Other than that, they look and act like villagers, and you can even trade with them for unique items. Unlike villagers with specific items, the trading offers from a wandering trader are usually random. From packed ice to flowers, you can expect a diverse range of items from the trader.

Moreover, there is no way to turn a regular villager into a wandering trader. Neither there is a way of spawning them. A wandering trader randomly spawns with 2 leashed trader llamas around the player after 1 in-game day has passed. They can spawn anywhere within a 48-block radius around your location. So, keep your eyes peeled. Also, they definitely despawn after a while, so you cannot keep them or their trades for too long.

How Do Villagers Get their Jobs in Minecraft

The villagers’ jobs depend upon the utility block present around them. These blocks are also known as job site blocks. For example, if a villager has a composter nearby, they will automatically attain a farmer’s profession. But as you can expect, due to limited utility blocks, many villagers are also jobless.

An overview of all Minecraft villager jobs, their trades and the job site blocks
Click to Enlarge | Image courtesy: Minecraft Wiki

Though, if you want to assign a particular profession to an unemployed villager, you can easily craft and place the required utility block near them. Doing so will automatically make the villager opt for the profession connected to that block. Then, you can trade for completely unique items with the same villager.

Villagers have been discussed recently a lot and Mojang is definitely planning to modify their trades. At least, this goes for librarians, armorers, and cartographers. You can try these potential changes by enabling the “Villager Trade Rebalance” experimental features in Java edition or the “Villager Trade Rebalancing” features in Bedrock edition while creating a new world.

The thing that will be changed is how biomes will affect villager trades. Librarians will still trade enchanted books, but the biome will determine which one. When these changes are officially added to the game, we’ll update this article, so you know exactly what they’re about.

  • Enabling Villager Trade Rebalance experimental feature in Java edition
  • Enabling Villager Trade Rebalancing experimental feature in Bedrock edition

Now that you know every detail about all villager jobs, you are more than ready to make the most out of your survival world. Meanwhile, you only need emeralds for trading with villagers in most cases.

You can break emerald ores and get emeralds that way, or simply offer villagers something you don’t really need like sticks to a fletcher and that’ll earn you emeralds. With that said, don’t forget to share your favorite villager job in Minecraft in the comments section. Let’s see how many of our readers have the same thought.

Why won’t my villager pick a job?

There are a couple of reasons for this villager behavior. One of them is that the villager cannot find their path to the workstation block. Additionally, villagers work only during the work time during the day.

That means early in the morning and late in the evening, they won’t try to work and won’t be assigned a new profession. One more reason can be the fact that some other villager is occupying that job site block, so the villager you want to assign the job cannot take it. Try to isolate all the other villagers outside of the room and the chosen villager will soon take that job if it’s middle of the day.

Do villagers need a bed to get a job in Minecraft?

No. Villagers need a bed to spawn an iron golem, but not to work. They also restock their trades just fine even if they don’t sleep.

Can villagers open gates in Minecraft?

No, they cannot. Villagers can open and close regular doors, but not iron doors, trapdoors, gates or chests.

comment Comments 15
  • NoobGangNB1234 says:

    My favorite villager is librarian + mason. librarian because of the enchanted books . mason because you can trade 10 clays for 1 emerald. i turned them into zombie villagers and then i cured them and they give me amazing offers: 1 emerald for sharpness 5 & 4 clay for 1 emerald

  • Pettas08 says:

    I like them all even the nitwit for i use the nitwit to distract illagers in raids

  • Todd Cline says:

    This is a helpful article. I made every profession in one village and expanded the village into a town. By making extra houses with beds only, I ended up with multiple of the same profession using only the one original job block. I love the Librarian for Enchanted Books (Mending I); and traded with others to earn Emeralds for these books.

  • BestOrca726052 says:

    I hate both nitwits and clerics

  • BrightTigerclaw says:

    Villager do require a bed to get a job, but they don’t require sleeping. If a villager isn’t linked to a bed, it won’t take new jobs, unlink from it’s current job, or restock.

    • Raymond Rehbein says:

      If a villager does
      Not sleep it loses
      It’s job

  • oli says:

    the fletcher and the Cleric r my absolute favourites cuz the Cleric trades Ender pearls which helps u when u r trying to speedrun Minecraft and the Fletcher cuz it trades emeralds for 32 sticks which is amazing

  • Trey Nash says:

    My favorite villager is either the cartographer, fisherman, or the librarian. I can’t pick between these villagers. I like the cartographer because you can get treasure maps from it and if you have a lot paper or a lot sugarcane near by you can get a lot of emeralds. I like the fisherman because you can get a lot of emeralds from it with fish which is easy to get a lot of. Then you can use those emeralds for better trades. And finally, I like the librarian because you can get enchanted books from it.

  • KL says:

    I like the villagers unique jobs, but the cartographer is one of my favorites because they are very useful for trading maps. I also like librarians because they are good for trading name tags, compasses, and enchanted books. This article has been really informative for me. I hope there will be more articles like this about minecraft and other app games. Thank you for the good info! 👍

  • msn says:

    honestly i like the nitwit. he don’t have a job, i don’t either. good stuff.

  • Jess says:

    My favorite villager is the Fletcher! If you collect sticks for them they will offer emeralds so it makes a quick and easy grind in highly “wooded” areas. This makes getting emeralds quick and easy! i suggest having two+

  • Amara says:

    None of this explains why when i put down a utility block (i’ve tried a composter, loom, smoker, and smithing table) it does the green sparkle thing then the angry smoke pops up like i’m doing something wrong or the villagers deny the jobs and idk why.

  • XV says:

    my fave villager is the librarian bc they give me mending a lot, when i see memes of “why cant i get mending” i always laugh bc they always give me mending, like 85% of the time

  • Minecraft pro says:

    Mine is wandering trader. I like them Because they are the only villager type who can sell more that 5 items for 1 emerald.

  • Greg Conner Walker says:

    My favorite villager is a cartographer. The reason is that the Cartographer has really good items like explorer maps which leads players towards woodland mansions and ocean monuments. Though, I enjoy trading with them more in Creative than in survival— they have so expensive prices that usually in survival, I can’t even trade a few empty maps with the cartagraphers before my emeralds started running out.

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