This essential guide covers over 20 different jobs, so please bookmark it now, as you may want to come back to it later. Other age groups are catered for at:

Jobs for teens

Jobs for 12 year olds

Jobs for 14 year olds

Jobs for 15 year olds

Jobs for 16 year olds

Part time jobs for 16 year olds

Jobs for 17 year olds

Paper round jobs for 13 year olds

There are 1000's of paper round jobs for 13 year olds, so it's one of the easiest jobs to get into.

To deliver the morning paper, you must be able to get up early every day of the week (school days, weekends and school holidays), as people expect their newspaper to be delivered before breakfast time, so that they can read it whilst eating their breakfast.

If you're a 13 year old that hates getting up early for a paper round job, there are also afternoon and evening papers to be delivered, plus there are local papers (paid and free) that may need to be delivered in your area.

For newspaper delivery jobs, you have to be prepared to go out in all weathers, whether it's sunny, raining or cold. You need to be 100% reliable, as paperboys / papergirls that don't turn up will really annoy the newsagent and could lead to you being fired.

To apply for newspaper delivery jobs for 13 year olds, you just need to go to your local newsagents and see if they have any adverts in the shop window for papergirl / paperboy jobs for 13 year olds (if there are no adverts just ask them).

How much will you be paid for paper round jobs? 13 year olds can expect to be paid per completed paper round at a rate set by the newsagent, so ask around to find out which of your local newsagents pays the best.

Saturday jobs for 13 year olds

There are a wide variety of Saturday jobs for 13 year olds, including washing cars, gardening, delivering flyers, modelling (see below), babysitting (see below), retail and hospitality (both covered later on this page) and working for your parents.

Washing cars is a simple job that just requires a bucket, a sponge, a shammy leather and some car shampoo. You can start with your parents, other relations, family friends and neighbours.

Another good Saturday job for 13 year olds is gardening. Again, you can start with your parents, relations, neighbours and family friends. Be careful with any tools, making sure that you are aware of potential dangers - it's probably best to be supervised by a responsible adult.

Delivering flyers is a fairly straightforward job similar to delivering newspapers, but without the early morning starts! You'll need to find out who delivers flyers in your area and offer to do it for them. Typically taxi companies, takeaway services and pizza delivery companies frequently post flyers through letterboxes. See what drops through your own letterbox to find out who may need your services.

If your parents run their own business or are self-employed, then you may be able to work for them, doing some administration or even helping them on their PC / laptop (as a 13 year old, you may have more IT skills than your parents).

You could also run errands for your parents, or help in the garden or house for a bit of extra pocket money. Think carefully about what your parents need help with and what would make their life easier.

Summer jobs for 13 year olds

Want to earn money over the summer holidays, then consider one of the following summer jobs for 13 year olds.

All the jobs listed above under Saturday jobs could also be done as summer jobs, including gardening and washing cars, plus there are a whole host of other jobs for 13 year olds listed further down this web page.

A job that is specific to summer holidays is helping with school (or other) holiday clubs where you could help with activities for smaller children. You are unlikely to be paid for this type of job at the age of 13, but it would give you good work experience if you wanted to work as a babysitter in the future or within the childcare or education sectors when you are older. Look out for holiday clubs advertised at schools / youth centres if this sort of job interests you.

Another job that 13 year olds can only do in holiday time, is working in an office. Perhaps you've got some IT skills they could use, or graphic design skills, or social media skills, or just helping them with admin. Lots of people take a holiday in the school holidays, so offices may need an extra pair of hands to help out.

Office work may be paid or unpaid depending on the nature of the work, but whichever it is, you should look at this is an opportunity to get some real world work experience. If your parents work in an office, ask them if they can find something within their office or you may hear of something through friends or family or your school may be able to arrange some work experience for you.

You'll probably won't need to find out how to write a CV or get a professional CV from CV writing service, as 13 year olds don't normally need to supply a CV for office work, unlike their older counterparts!

Part time jobs for 13 year olds

There are a wide range of part time jobs for 13 year olds, some of them were covered above, including paper rounds and Saturday jobs (washing cars, gardening, delivering flyers and working for your parents).

Other part time jobs that you may want to consider (that are described in more detail later on this page), include babysitting, hairdressing, dog walking, online jobs, modelling, acting, cleaning, retail, pet sitting and other animal related jobs.

If you're 13 and enterprising, there should certainly be some part-time jobs that you can do.

Babysitting jobs for 13 year olds

You won't find babysitting jobs for 13 year olds advertised and most adults will consider that a 13 year old is far too young to be left in charge of their own children.

It may be better to try out the other jobs listed on this page first, before considering a babysitting job or wait until you're a bit older. You need to be very mature to be a babysitter, as you'll be responsible for the children that you are babysitting.

Training is essential if you really want to be a babysitter. The Red Cross produce a babysitting course for teachers and youth organisations, so ask around to see who is running one in your area. You'll learn about nappy changing, first aid, fire safety and handling difficult situations, plus you get a certificate at the end.

The Red Cross normally recommend that you are 14 at the end of the course, so you can start it when your 13 years old. They also say that this is a guide and not a minimum age requirement.

Doing a babysitting course with a certificate at the end will give you physical proof that you can show to parents, which will reassure them that you have the essential training needed to look after their children and that you will know what to do if a situation or emergency arises.

Start by babysitting for members of your own family or your neighbours' children and ask for an adult to supervise you to start with. Once you've gained in confidence, you can move on to looking after other children and start charging for babysitting.

You must ensure that you yourself will be safe at all times, so make sure your own parents know what you are doing and preferably get them to accompany you for your initial chat with the parents, and to drop you off / pick you up when you are babysitting.

Hairdressing jobs for 13 year olds

You'll be lucky to find any hairdressing jobs for 13 year olds advertised, as you're likely to be consider too young to cut hair, but you can still work in a hairdressing salon.

The sorts of jobs 13 year olds are allowed to do are making cups of tea and coffee for clients, sweeping up in the salon and when you become trusted you may even wash clients' hair.

When you're older you can train and learn how to cut clients' hair, put in highlights and hair extensions, and dry their hair with a hairdryer.

To find hairdressing jobs for 13 year olds, you should approach all the salons in your local area, particularly the larger ones - they may need some help on a Saturday when they are very busy.

Dog walking jobs for 13 year olds

So many people have dogs that it should be fairly easy for you to find dog walking jobs for 13 year olds.

Dogs need regular exercise to stay fit and health, but a lot of owner's are so busy that they don't have time everyday to walk and exercise their dogs as often as they'd like, so you could offer to walk their dog for them.

Also when they go on holiday, a lot of dog owners don't want to put their beloved dog in kennels, as this can be expensive and also upsetting for their dog. They may prefer someone to look after their dog whilst their away at the dog owner's home.

Start by asking friends, family and neighbours if they need any help to regularly walk and exercise their dogs. Once you build up a reputation, you can then look to walk other owner's dogs and they may also find you by word of mouth.

There are also people that run their own dog walking businesses. They may need help if they have too many clients or when they want to take a holiday themselves, so they'll need someone else to walk their clients' dogs.

See who's advertising their dog walking business locally in the local papers, Yellow Pages or online. You may also see their van parked or driving around your area - so write down their telephone number. Just give them a ring and see if they need any help.

Online jobs for 13 year olds

There are now a lot of online jobs for 13 year olds, you can do anything from answering surveys to designing and selling stuff.

You can get paid for your opinions by market research companies conducting surveys on behalf of their clients. You typically have to spend 15 to 30 minutes answering their questions. Make sure that you never hand over any money yourself to any company offering to put you in touch with other companies that pay you to complete surveys.

If you're a creative 13 year old and have good graphic design skills, then you could do anything from designing logos, to producing flyers, adverts and websites for other people. You will need to put together a portfolio of your best work, so people can see how good you are.

Jobs can be found online through freelancer / design websites and they'll normally take care of everything for you, including paying you. They'll take a percentage of your fee, but this is preferable to sites that charge you an upfront fee and then don't give you any work.

If you love apps yourself and are good a computer coding, then you could try your hand at developing your own app for iPhones and Android smartphones. If you design an original app that goes viral, you can make a lot of money from your app.

Another online job for a 13 year old is to start a blog about a subject that interests you and get paid when people click on the adverts on your blog or you could produce product reviews and include paid affiliate links for the product, plus adverts too.

You could also get paid for producing content for someone else's blog or website. Look for blogs or websites in a subject area that interests you and contact the site owner either by phone or email asking if they need any content created. If they are interested, expect to be asked for an original article on their subject area (to prove you can create good content).

If you're good at creating online videos (of any type) that would interest other people, then you could upload them to YouTube and earn money when people view them, as YouTube offer revenue sharing from their advertisements.

If you are fascinated by the world of buying and selling, then you could open your very own online store, or anything else you fancy. When you're online, nobody knows that your only 13 years old!

If you're heavily into social media like Facebook or Twitter, then you may be able to do this for a business on the web that needs help in establishing or building their online presence. To make an initial approach, just get involved with them through their social media accounts - try to target smaller companies that look like they're struggling, large corporates will already have this covered.

Make sure you get advice from your parents / teachers before you embark on any type of online jobs for 13 year olds. You'll also need to ensure that everything you do is legal and that any taxes are paid.

Modelling jobs for 13 year olds

You'll find lots of modelling jobs for 13 year olds advertised. Most are just commercial companies planning to part you (or your parents) from your cash and give you little or nothing back.

You need to be very careful and suspicious about modelling agencies. There are many really good agencies that have successfully found work for their clients, but equally there are also agencies that are seemingly just set up to take your money and then disappear.

Get recommendations from friends and family and then get your parents to check the agency out. What are people saying about the agency? Have they found work for people you know?

To get a modelling job, you'll need to have a certain 'look' that photographers want. You could be modelling clothing or feature in advertisements for specific goods or services that require a 13 year old.

Modelling can pay very well, but you'll need to be able to travel to each assignment and you'll have less free time and time to study if you get regular modelling contracts.

You'll normally be charged a fee to put together a portfolio of photographs - a professional photographer will take a series of photographs of you that the agency can then send to potential clients.

Always take one or both of your parents with you on assignments and for your meetings with the agency and get them to thoroughly read any modelling contracts before you sign them - make sure they're happy with the contract.

Acting jobs for 13 year olds

There are plenty of acting jobs for 13 year olds, including work in film, television or theatres. If you love drama at school and have natural flair and talent or a particular look that producers / directors want, then you could go far.

Most 13 year olds have daydreamed about being a famous actor / actress, but if you want to make this a long-term career, it will take a lot of hard work and dedication. Expect to put in a lot of work and to take lots of knock-backs.

You'll need to get an agent if you want to get paid work. They shouldn't charge you to represent you, although there may be a charge to put together a professional portfolio. You'll only get paid if they find work for you and they'll take a share of any earnings that you make.

Your parents should read and OK any contracts and they should acompany when you meet the agent, and may accompany you to any paid assignments.

Game testing jobs for 13 year olds

You may find some game testing jobs for 13 year olds advertised on the Internet. Most are just by companies that want to sell you information, rather than actually offering you game testing jobs. Don't ever part with money, as all you're likely to get back is a list of the names and addresses of games manufacturers.

Game testing is not the same as playing games, when you're testing you must try to find bugs, see how engaging the games is, identify likes / dislikes, it's not the same as just playing the game. You may have to stay at exactly the same level in a game for a long time and have to try and explore the whole level, which can get a bit tedious after a while.

To be a games tester, you normally need to have experience in designing and testing games - so you should start by designing and testing your own games, perhaps with a group of friends from school.

You'll need to learn about design and programming and you could start by designing and testing games apps for the iPhone, Android smartphone, PCs, laptops or tablets. You might even make some money from this if your app becomes popular.

Once you've got experience in design and actual game testing, you could volunteer to test other people's games - take a look at game development forums, such as http://www.gamedev.net/

To get yourself noticed, you could start a review website or blog and post your own reviews of games you've played. You could monetise this with Google AdSense adverts or include links to websites that actually sell the games you've reviewed, e.g. join Amazon's affiliate program.

If your website / blog becomes popular, you may get games manufacturers approaching you directly to review or test their games.

Video game tester jobs for 13 year olds

If you're looking for video game tester jobs for 13 year olds, then you're probably find it difficult to find anything, as the games manufacturers are looking for people who are experienced in game design and testing.

You may really enjoy playing video games yourself, but testing video games is very different from playing them and requires a different skillset, you need to be very methodical and you will need to test out every level (within the video game) and every possible scenario.

This role is very similar to game testing jobs (see above for more information), but in this case you're focusing on the video game console platforms.

Cleaning jobs for 13 year olds

There are unlikely to be any cleaning jobs for 13 year olds advertised, as you normally need to be 16. You may however, be able to do some cleaning jobs for family or friends or possibly some neighbours if they know you well and trust you.

You may also be able to do sweeping up at a hairdressing salon, or cleaning / domestic jobs in a shop, office, hotel, restaurant or cafe - ask around to see what's going in your area.

Pet sitting jobs for 13 year olds

There are plenty of pet sitting jobs for 13 year olds, as pet owners would often prefer their pet to stay at their own home when they go away.

Dog and cat owners may also not want the expense of paying for kennels or a cattery. Plus owners with other types of pets aren't normally catered for.

Typically, dogs and cats remain in their owner's home when there away, so you would be pet sitting at the owner's home.

It's probably best to start with friends and family to start with and get your parents involved too - most owner's would want your parents supervising and would only hand over their house keys to an adult they trust.

Pet sitting is a responsible job and you need to be a mature and reliable 13 year old to take on a pet sitting job, which will normally involve feeding the pet and cleaning up any mess it makes.

If you're pet sitting a dog, then you'll need to take it out for walks several times a day. Agree this with the owner before they leave, plus find out how much food and water the dog needs and how frequently, plus what other duties they expect you to perform.

If you're pet sitting a cat, then you may need to let it out and in again, if there isn't a cat flap. You'll need to find out from the owner how much food and water to leave out and how frequently you should feed the cat, plus any other duties.

If you're pet sitting job is for an animal other than a cat or dog, ensure that you find out exactly what is entailed.

Riding / horse jobs for 13 year olds

There are certainly riding / horse jobs for 13 year old, but they are often not paid jobs. What sort of jobs you can do will depend on how much experience you have already got with horses.

If you have little or no horse riding experience, then all you are likely to be allowed to do would be mucking out the stables, cleaning the yard, cleaning and maintaining tack, feeding the horses and grooming them.

If you are an experienced horse rider, then you may also be allowed to exercise the horses, lead first time riders in lessons, assist an instructor in teaching lessons and building jumps. You may get paid for doing these sorts of jobs.

To find horse jobs for 13 year olds go to your local riding stables, saddlery shops or local tack stores - going into each one and ask them if they have any jobs they want doing. You'll need to be able to get there yourself and you must be enthusiastic and hard-working and really love horses.

As a 13 year old you are unlikely to be paid much, as a lot of riding stables will just reward you with free rides and lessons. Once you get more experience you may get paid though.

Braiding horses manes and tails for horse shows can pay quite well, so it's definitely worth learning how to do this.

Other animal jobs for 13 year olds

We've already listed a variety of animal jobs for 13 year olds (above), but there are also other jobs you can do.

A lot of dog and cat owners don't like washing and grooming their animals, so you could offer to do this for them. Ask your family and friends to get yourself started and you can then move on to other people's pets later.

There are also washing and grooming salons for cats and dogs, either run as part of a pet shop business or separately. If there are any locally, you could certainly approach them.

If you live near a zoo, farm or animal sanctuary, you may be able to volunteer, which could lead to paid work in the future.

To secure animal jobs for 13 year olds, you will need to approach people directly yourself and you need to be enthusiastic and hard-working.

Retail jobs for 13 year olds

The only retail jobs for 13 year olds are likely to be jobs such as stacking shelves or cleaning and tidying the shop, unless of course your parents own a shop themselves, in which case you will have far more options.

At 13 years old, you're really too young to be employed working the till or actually selling in the shop itself. A lot of retailers won't consider taking you on until your 16, especially big national chain.

To get retail jobs for 13 year olds, you'll need to go into local shops to find out if they have any jobs that would be suitable for you.

Farm jobs for 13 year olds

If you live in or near the countryside, then you might consider farm jobs for 13 year olds. This could be anything from mucking out and feeding the pigs and chickens to helping with other livestock such as sheep and cows.

To find farm jobs for 13 year olds, just ask the farmers that are local to you if they need any help. There are very strict health and safety rules and you will not be able to work near heavy machinery or operate it.

Photography jobs for 13 year olds

You don't normally think of photography jobs for 13 year olds, but if you have a natural flair and talent for photography, then if you are good enough, you can even make some money from it.

The type of photography that you are interested in will determine what type of camera you will need - professionals now tend to use a digital SLR, but you don't necessarily need this when you are starting out.

A simple way to make money if your photos are good, is to upload them to stock photo sites that sell royalty free stock photos to their clients. You'll get paid every time that someone downloads one of your photos.

Starting your own business

If you're entrepreneurial, then you might want to start your own business. Some of the ideas above such as dog walking, pet sitting and online jobs could be turned into a nice little business for you.

You might have some idea for a new Internet business or a new Smartphone app or game, or want to buy or sell stuff, or something else entirely.

You should try to involve your parents and get their advice too. You may need their help to set up a bank account and for other things too. You need to ensure that everything you do is legal and that any relevant taxes are paid.

More job search advice

• Jobs for teens
• Jobs for 14 year olds
• Discover how to start a cover letter
• Get a professional cover letter
• A good cover letter example
• Finding job vacancies
• Writing a speculative cover letter
• Viewing a speculative cover letter example