You work as a transportation broker — matching shippers with carriers across truckload, LTL, intermodal, or specialty freight, negotiating rates, coordinating shipments, and earning a margin on each booked load.
Days tend to revolve around shipper prospecting, carrier sourcing, and live load coverage — calling potential shippers, building customer relationships, working the carrier load board to cover committed freight, managing operational details on bookings. Loads booked, gross margin captured, and shipper and carrier retention shape the visible measures.
What gets demanding is the dual-sided sales-and-operations work — transportation brokers build both sides of the marketplace simultaneously, and the role requires phone-based prospecting stamina alongside operational follow-through. Variance across employers is wide: large brokerages (TQL, CH Robinson, XPO) run with structured agent programs; smaller brokerages and independent brokers run with personal book-building.
This role tends to fit folks who carry entrepreneurial drive, comfort with high-volume phone work, and the resilience for income variability that commission-driven brokerage involves. TIA credentials and growing carrier and shipper networks anchor advancement. The trade-off is the income volatility of commission-based work and the cumulative phone load that broker work generates.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Admin & Office roles →You work as a transportation broker — matching shippers with carriers across truckload, LTL, intermodal, or specialty freight, negotiating rates, coordinating shipments, and earning a margin on each booked load.
Median pay for a Transportation Broker is about $50K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $37K to $76K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Speaking, Active Listening, Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking, and Negotiation.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 8.5% through 2034, with roughly 97,800 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Corporate Licensed Broker, Customs House Broker, and Cargo Broker.
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