Jobs for 12 year olds that pay
There are a whole host of jobs for 12 year olds that pay listed below, including paper round jobs, Saturday jobs, babysitting, modelling, part time jobs, dog walking, plus many more.
You'll also find out how to apply for these 12 year old jobs, plus learn exactly what the duties are for each of them, so that you can decide whether they interest you or whether you would rather completely avoid them.
This crucial guide contains more than 20 paying jobs, bookmark it now. You can also take a look at:
Part time jobs for 16 year olds
Saturday jobs for 12 year olds
There are lots of Saturday jobs for 12 year olds, such as gardening, washing and cleaning cars, modelling (more about this further down this page) and doing jobs for your own parents.
Gardening is a great job if you like being outside. Most 12 year olds start by helping their own parents with their garden, often to earn a bit of pocket money. If you enjoy gardening, you could also work for relations, your family's friends and your neighbours.
As you are so young, you should be supervised by an adult. If you do a good job, then people will want you to do their garden again and you may even get recommendations to other people who need help with their gardens.
Cleaning and washing cars is a good Saturday job when the weather is nice. All you need is a sponge, car shampoo, a bucket and a shammy leather - your parents will probably already have these if they have a car.
Start with your parents car/s for some pocket money and then see if neighbours, relations and family friends would like you to wash their cars for a small payment. Make sure you do a great job, then people will ask you back and may recommend you to other people.
Your parents may be happy to increase your pocket money if you help out more around the house or with small errands. Give some thought to what would help your parents out.
Should your parents have their own business, then there may be jobs that you can do for them, such as admin, filing, or perhaps helping them with IT. As a 13 year old, you may know more about IT / computing than your parents.
You can also find other ideas for jobs that 12 year olds can do on this web page. They're not specifically Saturday jobs, as they can be performed on any day of the week. You won't need professional CV writing assistance as CV writing isn't a skill your need to master until you have to make a formal job application - when you get to that stage you may wish to consider using our CV writing services.
Paper round jobs for 12 year olds
Are there any paper round jobs for 12 year olds? This all depends on the country you live in, in the UK you normally need to be 13 to get a paper round job, but other countries allow you to start at a younger age - if you're not sure what age you have to be in your country, just ask at your local newsagents.
Babysitting jobs for 12 year olds
Are there any babysitting jobs for 12 year olds? Strictly speaking you normally need to be 14 to do a babysitting job and most people won't trust a 12 year old with their own children.
If you have younger brothers or sisters or younger cousins, then you may be able to start by looking after them, whilst being supervised by an adult. You probably won't get paid for this initially, but if you do it regularly, you could ask for an increase in pocket money from your parents.
When you get a bit older, you can turn this experience into a proper babysitting job. It would be a good idea to get proper training when you're 13 / 14 and the Red Cross have a babysitting course for teachers and youth organisations, so see what's available in your local area.
Acting jobs for 12 year olds
If you like drama at school, then you may find acting jobs for 12 year olds of interest to you. You of course need to be good at acting to stand a chance of getting any work and you may need to have a certain presence or 'look'.
To start with, you'll need to get yourself an agent to represent you. They'll need to create a portfolio for you that contains photographs taken by a professional photographer for which you or your parents will have to pay a fee.
Make sure your parents are involved at every stage, from meeting the agent, to reading the contract and attending your first paid work contract. Other than the portfolio fee, the agent shouldn't charge you to find work, they'll take a commission (usually a fixed percentage) from the fees you get paid.
To succeed with acting jobs at 12 years old, you'll need natural talent, and you'll have to work very hard to learn your lines and get into the character that you are playing, their emotions and their motivation.
Modelling jobs for 12 year olds
There are plenty of modelling jobs for 12 year olds, you can model clothing and feature in advertising campaigns where they are marketing products / services to your age group or a wider demographic.
Make sure you sign-up with a reputable agency. You'll see lots of agencies advertising, but unfortunately some of them will only be after getting a fee from you for producing a portfolio and then you'll never hear from them again.
Get your parents involved at an early stage and get them to take a close look at any agency, ensuring that they have actually found paid work for other 12 year olds that they have represented. Who has the work been for and are they local to you? Do other children / parents recommend them or do they say steer clear?
Even when you are using a reputable agency there's never any guarantees that they can find you work. So many children want a modelling job and there are only so many assignments each week.
The only fees that an agency can charge you for are the production of your portfolio, which they will require to send to their clients. They will employ a professional photographer to take photos of you.
Make sure that your parents go with you to all meetings with the agency and when your photos are being take, and it's normal for them to come on any of your modelling assignments. Get your parents to read any contracts very carefully.
If you have the right 'look' modelling can be quite lucrative, but it is hard work, as there may be quite a bit of travelling involved and lots of sitting around whilst things are being set up or changed.
Summer jobs for 12 year olds
There are a number of different summer jobs for 12 year olds, you could consider one of the jobs listed above such as washing cars, gardening, doing jobs for your parents, plus you can also do acting and modelling.
You might also consider jobs like dog walking, pet sitting, other animal jobs, online jobs or starting a business - see below for further advice on how to get one of these jobs.
At 12 years old, you are considered to young to work in an office, shop, restaurant or hotel, you normally need to be at least 13.
Part time jobs for 12 year olds
There are plenty of part time jobs for 12 year olds, again you might want to consider acting, modelling, gardening, jobs for your parents, or washing and cleaning cars.
There are also part time jobs you can do with animals, like pet sitting, dog walking, and then there is online jobs or you could even start your own business - all these jobs are detailed below.
Dog walking jobs for 12 year olds
People love their dogs, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find dog walking jobs for 12 year olds.
Most owner's know that their dog needs to exercise regularly to keep it both fit and healthy, but not everyone has time to do this as often as they would like, which is where you could step in and offer to walk their dog.
You could ask members of your family that own a dog, plus also neighbours and family friends with dogs. If you're good at walking their dog and you are always punctual and polite, they may recommend you to other people that they know.
When people are away at the weekend or on holiday, you could also offer to walk their dog - you could save them a lot of money, if they had to put their dog into kennels this would be expensive.
Another option would be to help someone who has their own dog walking business. If they are successful, then they may not have time to walk all the dogs themselves and they could pay you to walk some of their clients' dogs. At some point they may want to take some days off, so they may need a replacement dog walker.
You can find out who operates in your area by looking in the Yellow Pages, in local papers (they may advertise) or online. Sometime you may see a van in your local area with the name and phone number of a dog walking business.
You can phone them up and simply ask if they need any help, either before or after school at the weekends or during school holidays or when they're on holiday themselves.
Online jobs for 12 year olds
You can easily find online jobs for 12 year olds, because when you're online nobody knows that you're only 12! If you're creative and hard-working then you should be able to find an online job where you get paid.
If you're artistic and have excellent graphic design skills, then there are plenty of people who will be happy to pay you whatever your age. You could design a company's logo, advertisements, flyers, websites, whatever you're good at. You'll probably need to create a portfolio to showcase your best work.
There are plenty of freelance / graphic design websites where you can sell your services. The best sites take care of all payments and will pay you promptly when you have completed the work to the client's satisfaction. They'll deduct their fee from your payment, which is usually a set percentage. Make sure you choose a service that is free to sign-up to.
If you're really into Facebook or Twitter or other social media, then you may be able to turn this into a money spinner, if you can find a company that could use your expertise. Most smaller companies are struggling with social media and could really use some help.
Try and find local companies, especially those targeting children in your age bracket, as you will be able to offer them a real insight into what they should be doing. To start with, you can just engage with them through their existing social media accounts and take it from there.
If you have a flair for writing, then you could create a blog around an interest or hobby or some topic that you are interested in. For instance, you could produce a review website / blog for your favourite game. You can make money from advertising or affiliate links to the products you've reviewed.
Other people will pay you if you are able to produce good quality content for their blog or website. The content would have to be interesting and it would need to be about something that you know about well.
If you can produce interesting, amusing or informative videos, you might want to give YouTube a try. You can upload your videos and get a share of the advertising revenue that is generated when someone watches the advert before your video gets played.
Do you like apps and are you good at programming? Then how about creating your own apps, if a lot of people download your app then you can make some money either through advertising or in-app purchases or charging for the app in the first place.
It's possible to buy and sell stuff online even when your just 12 years old. You'll probably need help from your parents, but if you want to, there's little to stop you trading online.
Obviously, when you're working online you shouldn't do anything illegal and you may have to pay tax if you become successful. Ensure that your parents know exactly what you are doing and you also need to be very careful when you're online, as not everyone is open and honest.
Weekend jobs for 12 year olds
There are a variety of weekend jobs for 12 year olds, most of them are separately listed above, but we've listed a a few more below, for a full description of each of these jobs please see jobs for 13 year olds:
- Pet sitting.
- Other animal jobs, such as washing and grooming pets.
- Volunteering at a nearby zoo, farm or animal sanctuary.
- Photography.
- Starting your own business.
More job search tips
- Jobs for teens
- Jobs for 13 year olds
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