All the Minecraft villager jobs explained: Your guide to villagers

By Joe Julians

Published: Monday, 11 October 2021 at 12:00 am

If you have been wandering the virtual world of Minecraft, you will have certainly come across some of the Minecraft villagers that are about in abundance by now. You will have noticed that they have jobs, too.

Knowing who is who and who does what will really help you out as you play. These villagers are there to be traded with and some will be ones that you will definitely want to pay a visit to, to see what sweet stock they have at their disposal.

But who is the best villager to go and see, and who is not really worth your time? Let’s do a Minecraft villager deep-dive to find out!

How many villager jobs are there in Minecraft?

There are currently 15 villager jobs in Minecraft – well, sort of. There are many villagers there with jobs, but one of the jobs listed is ‘Unemployed’ and the other is ‘Nitwit’. Unemployed means they can be hired for a job, whereas Nitwit’s can’t do anything and are essentially pointless, bless ’em.

As for the other 13, they are Armorer, Butcher, Cartographer, Cleric, Farmer, Fisherman, Fletcher, Leatherworker, Librarian, Mason, Shepherd, Toolsmith and Weaponsmith.

Minecraft villager jobs

Now, let’s take a closer look at all those jobs and what they can help you out with. For the job blocks, they have their own section a little further down the page.

Minecraft villager professions

Armourer

Visit an Armourer if you want to buy chainmail or, perhaps unsurprisingly, armour. The clue is in the name with a lot of these.

Butcher

Would you be surprised to learn you can buy meat? Well, you can but that’s not all as the Butcher will also be able to trade emeralds with you – a fancy butcher then!

Cartographer

Want to get your hand on a map or two? Head on down to the Cartographer who will sort you out. You can also get banner patterns here.

Cleric

Pay a visit to the Cleric if you want to pick up magical items that include a Bottle o’ Enchanting!

Farmer

Brewing ingredients and advanced food will be available from the Farmer – so head to one if they are things you want to get your hands on.

Fisherman

Visit the Fisherman and you will be able to buy, well, fish. But that’s not all! You can also get an enchanted fishing rod which is exactly the type of rod we would want!

Fletcher

All your bow and arrow needs can be met with the Fletcher as you can get bow’s, arrow’s (including tipped ones) along with some flint too.

Leatherworker

Take a trip to the Leatherworker for all things leather. So that’s Armor, Horse Armor and saddles – make your Minecraft horse the best it can be!

Librarian

Enchanted books and names tags can be purchased from the librarian and, as far as we know, there are no late fees.

Mason

Want cut versions of blocks and bricks? The Mason is waiting to trade you just those very things.

Shepherd

Coloured woods and paintings are what the Shepherd has so if you need those, you now know where to go!

Toolsmith

Yep, this is who you will want to check in with if you need to get your hands on some tools – and there may be some enchanted ones in the inventory too.

Weaponsmith

Last but certainly not least is the Weasponsmith. You can buy swords and axes here made from Diamond or Iron and, again, there could be an enchanted one waiting for you too!

Job Blocks

Want a villager to have a certain type of profession? Well, you will need to hunt down the right job block. Happily, we have listed each job block below alongside which job they will work with.

Here is the list:

Armourer: Blast Furnace
Butcher: Smoker
Cartographer: Cartography Table
Cleric: Brewing Stand
Farmer: Composter
Fisherman: Barrel
Fletcher: Fletching Table
Leatherworker: Cauldron
Librarian: Lectern
Masons: Stonecutter
Shepherd: Loom
Toolsmith: Smithing Table
Weaponsmith: Grindstone

Minecraft Villager Appearance

Whichever Biome you are in will determine what appearance a villager has but they all appear as something, at least slightly, related to their profession, so you can tell pretty quickly what each one does before you even interact with them.

Trading Stock

To make sure that you are not trading too much, there is a cap placed on the stock that will change the value. You can do up to four trades each day and then the stock will run out, but trade an item regularly and you will see the price increase – a typical supply and demand type of situation.

Equally, items that don’t get traded that much will see a price decrease!

How to unlock a trade

There are five trade levels that you can work through and the higher you go, the better items you will see available.

Novice
Apprentice
Journeyman
Expert
Master

You will be able to tell the level of the villager you want to trade with by the colour of the badge that they wear with honour. Novices wear a stone-coloured, one, Apprentices sport an iron-coloured badge, then it’s gold for Journeyman, emerald for Expert and Diamond for Master.

Wandering Trader

The Wandering Trader is a bit of an anomaly in the game as they work completely differently from all the others.

When the trader does appear, he only sticks around for about an hour before disappearing again, so you will want to be quick to see what special items they have available for trading. These items are not worth more as a rule, but they are rare which means they are absolutely worth getting hold of.

The problem with this trader is that working out where they will appear is a bit of a nonstarter. It appears at random with no indication of where or when it will show up, but you will know when you have found the right trader as there will be leashed trading llamas walking alongside it.

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How to increase your popularity in Minecraft

The more popular you are, the better deals you get with trades so it pays to be nice. Or you could do horrible things and lose points and thus increase trade costs – the choice there is yours.

The point system words on a -30 to 30 scale and the aim of the game is to be as far from -30 as possible. To do that, you will want to do the following things:

Fending off a raid from pillagers will give you a massive point boost of 10.
You can get between two and four points for helping a villager level up through trading.
And when you trade with a villager you also nab yourself one point.

So make sure you focus on these things when you play to stay beloved by all. Alternatively, here is what you can do to decrease popularity.

Kill a villager which will lose you two points – casual assault loses one.
Attacking a villager child (?!) will lose you between three-five points and deservedly so!
You will have five points deducted if you kill a village’s Iron Golem – so avoid that if you need some popularity!

But that should be all you need to know to make the most out of the villagers and the items that can be traded from them. Now we’re off to play the game ourselves to do just that!

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