Every villager in Minecraft can fill one of 13 working jobs, and which one it takes depends entirely on the block sitting next to it. Place a Smithing Table beside an unemployed villager and it becomes a Toolsmith. Swap that for a Lectern and you get a Librarian instead. This guide covers every profession and its job block, how trade levels climb from Novice to Master, and exactly how to give, change, or lock in a villager’s job before you start trading.
All Villager Jobs in Minecraft (Full List)
Minecraft has 15 villager types in total: 13 working professions, each tied to a specific job site block, plus Nitwit and Unemployed, which never claim a job site at all. The table below lists every profession alongside the block that creates it.
| Villager Job | Job Block |
| Armorer | Blast Furnace |
| Butcher | Smoker |
| Cartographer | Cartography Table |
| Cleric | Brewing Stand |
| Farmer | Composter |
| Fisherman | Barrel |
| Fletcher | Fletching Table |
| Leatherworker | Cauldron |
| Librarian | Lectern |
| Mason | Stonecutter |
| Nitwit | N/A |
| Shepherd | Loom |
| Toolsmith | Smithing Table |
| Unemployed | N/A |
| Weaponsmith | Grindstone |
Most players chase Librarians first, since trading is the only way to get enchanted books from a villager, followed by Armorers and Weaponsmiths for enchanted gear and Toolsmiths for diamond tools. If you have been searching for a “blacksmith villager,” that profession does not exist in Minecraft. Players usually mean one of three jobs: Armorer, Toolsmith, or Weaponsmith, covering armor, tools, and weapons respectively. Mods can widen the list considerably, and the VillagersPlus mod is a good place to start if the vanilla roster feels thin.
Villager Job Blocks Explained
Searching by block instead of job name? Here is every job site block matched to the profession it creates.
| Job Block | Villager Job |
| Barrel | Fisherman |
| Blast Furnace | Armorer |
| Brewing Stand | Cleric |
| Cartography Table | Cartographer |
| Cauldron | Leatherworker |
| Composter | Farmer |
| Fletching Table | Fletcher |
| Grindstone | Weaponsmith |
| Lectern | Librarian |
| Loom | Shepherd |
| Smithing Table | Toolsmith |
| Smoker | Butcher |
| Stonecutter | Mason |
A Toolsmith’s job block is the Smithing Table. Place an unclaimed one near an unemployed villager and it will claim the block, becoming a Toolsmith that sells iron and diamond tools and buys coal, flint, and iron ingots for emeralds as it ranks up.
The Brewing Stand is the job block for a Cleric. An unemployed villager standing near an unclaimed one becomes a Cleric, taking rotten flesh, gold ingots, rabbit’s feet, turtle scute, and nether wart in exchange for redstone, lapis lazuli, glowstone, ender pearls, and Bottles o’ Enchanting once it reaches Master. Clerics do not sell brewed potions in vanilla Minecraft, despite the Brewing Stand connection.
Grindstones create Weaponsmiths. That villager buys coal, iron ingots, and diamonds while selling enchanted swords and axes, with the strongest enchanted weapons appearing once it reaches Master.
Drop a Cauldron nearby and you get a Leatherworker, who takes leather, flint, rabbit hide, and turtle scute in exchange for leather armor pieces. Its two most useful offers sit at the top: leather horse armor at Expert and a saddle at Master. Leatherworkers never sell enchanted gear at any tier, so look to an Armorer, Weaponsmith, or Toolsmith for that.
A Barrel produces a Fisherman. Expect it to buy raw fish, string, and coal in exchange for emeralds, cooked fish, and enchanted fishing rods at higher levels.
The Blast Furnace is the Armorer’s job block, and this is the one most often mistaken for a “blacksmith” block. Armorers buy iron ingots, coal, and diamonds, then sell iron, chainmail, and enchanted diamond armor as they level up.
How to Give, Change, or Reset a Villager’s Job
Assigning or changing a villager’s profession comes down to controlling which job block it can reach. Follow these steps:
- Find or breed an unemployed villager. Unemployed villagers wear a plain robe with no profession texture and have not claimed any job site block yet.
- Place the matching job block within range. In Java Edition, an unemployed villager searches up to a 48-block sphere around itself for the nearest unclaimed job block. Bedrock Edition uses a smaller 16-block radius with a 4-block height. Once it finds one, the villager claims it and adopts the matching profession, usually within a few seconds.
- If nothing happens, check for competition. A villager will not claim a job block that another villager has already claimed, that sits somewhere it cannot path to, or that is blocked by a wall or gate. Break the competing claim or clear the obstruction and try again.
- Change a job before the first trade. As long as a villager has not completed a trade with a player yet, breaking its current job block and placing a different one nearby re-rolls both its profession and its full trade list.
- Know that the change is permanent after that. The moment a villager completes its first trade, its profession locks in for good, even if you destroy the job block afterward. There is no workaround at that point; you will need a different, untraded villager instead.
- Remember nitwits are the exception. Nitwits, recognizable by their green apron, never take a job site block and cannot become employed no matter what is placed nearby. They still breed and take part in the village like any other resident, they just will not trade.
Villager Trade Levels From Novice to Master
After Journeyman, a villager ranks up to Expert, then finally Master, the highest tier available. In order, the five trade levels are Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master, and each one opens up trade options that were not available before.
You can read a villager’s level at a glance from the badge on its apron, not from its size: stone for Novice, iron for Apprentice, gold for Journeyman, emerald for Expert, and diamond for Master. Villagers do not grow larger or smaller as they rank up. The badge color is the only visual change tied to trade level.
Villagers earn experience toward the next tier with every trade, though the exact amount varies by the specific trade being made. It takes 10 total experience to reach Apprentice, 70 to reach Journeyman, 150 to reach Expert, and 250 to reach Master. Trading repeatedly with the same villager, even at low-value trades, is the only way to work it up to its best offers.
Tips for Trading With Villagers
Unlocking Better Trades
An employed villager restocks its trades automatically up to twice a day, as long as it can reach its claimed job site block, meaning any of the eight spaces directly beside or diagonal to it, or the nine blocks straight below. No bed or sleep cycle is required, just proximity.
If a villager’s current trades are all mediocre and it has not traded with you yet, breaking its job block and placing a fresh one nearby re-rolls both its profession and its full trade list. That is a fast way to fish for a better set of enchanted book or gear offers before you are locked in. Once you have made that first trade, the option disappears for good.
Curing a zombie villager that was previously employed keeps its old profession and applies a discount to most of its trades once it is working again, on top of whatever discount Hero of the Village provides.
On a multiplayer server, the Shopkeepers plugin lets you set up custom merchants with fixed stock, which sidesteps the whole re-rolling process when you want predictable prices for everyone. The Trading Post mod is the closer fit if you would rather keep vanilla villagers and just trade with several of them at once.
Hero of the Village and Bad Omen
Hero of the Village is the effect you want. It drops villager prices by roughly 30%, plus about 6% more per additional effect level, for 40 minutes, and villagers will occasionally toss you profession-related gifts while it is active. You earn it by successfully defending a village from a pillager raid.
Bad Omen works against you. Since Minecraft 1.21, it comes from drinking an Ominous Bottle, dropped by raid captains or found in Trial Chamber vaults, rather than applying automatically after you kill a captain. Drinking one near a village starts a 30-second Raid Omen countdown before the raid begins, giving you a short window to prepare defenses or move trading villagers somewhere safer.
The Wandering Trader
The Wandering Trader is a separate NPC from village-based villagers. It spawns randomly near the player with an escalating chance checked roughly every 20 minutes, and usually arrives with two trader llamas in tow. Its trades rotate and include items regular villagers do not sell, like coral blocks, every dye color, nautilus shells, blue ice, and potions of invisibility.
Since Minecraft 1.21.5, the Wandering Trader’s prices, stock, and trade count improved as part of the Villager Trade Rebalance, shipped fully into the base game with no experimental settings required. Each trader despawns on a fixed 40-minute timer after spawning, not a range, so do not expect one to wait around while you go looking for emeralds.
Villager Trade Rebalance and Biome Enchantments
The Cartographer and Wandering Trader portions of Mojang’s Villager Trade Rebalance are live in every world as of 1.21.5, no setup needed. The Librarian and Armorer portions are not. As of version 26.2, released under Minecraft’s new version numbering system, they remain locked behind the experimental “Villager Trade Rebalance” data pack, which has to be turned on manually when you create a new world. It has stayed experimental for more than two years, with no announced release date for the rest of it.
If you do enable the data pack, Librarian trades change to offer one specific enchantment tied to the village’s biome once the villager reaches Master, rather than a random selection from the standard pool. None of this applies in a default world, so do not expect biome-specific librarian enchantments unless you have switched the setting on yourself. In an ordinary survival world, working a Librarian up to Master and re-rolling untraded ones remains the practical route to the best enchantments in Minecraft.
Should You Build a Villager Farm?
A villager farm earns its keep if you are chasing specific enchanted books, gear, or a steady emerald income and would rather not keep walking between villages by hand. At its simplest, that means fencing off a small area with beds, a handful of job blocks, and room for villagers to breed, so you always have fresh, untraded villagers ready to claim a profession and restock on demand.
It is not worth building one if you only need a trade or two occasionally. Visiting the nearest village and using the villagers already living there is faster to set up and works just as well for casual play. Farms pay off most on long-running servers where several players are chasing the same enchantments repeatedly, since a shared farm scales better than everyone raiding the same village.
If vanilla trading starts to feel limited, a modded setup opens the door to new professions and trade tables without touching your existing world. The More Villagers mod adds professions for the Nether and the End, among others. Running it on a Modded Minecraft Server from Apex Hosting keeps the installation side simple so you can get to the trading.
FAQ
Can Two Villagers Claim the Same Job Block?
No. Only one villager can claim a given job site block at a time. If a second unemployed villager is nearby, it searches for a different unclaimed block instead of competing for the one that is already taken.
Do Villagers Need to Sleep to Restock Their Trades?
No. Restocking depends on a villager reaching its claimed job site block, which happens automatically up to twice a day. Sleeping in a bed is not required for restocking, though a villager still needs a bed nearby to stay a member of the village long-term.
What Is the Difference Between a Nitwit and an Unemployed Villager?
An unemployed villager can still claim a job block and gain a profession. A nitwit, easy to spot by its green apron, can never take a job no matter what block is placed nearby, though it can still breed and take part in the village otherwise.
Do Villager Professions and Trades Save if I Restart My Server?
Yes. A villager’s profession, trade level, and locked-in trades are saved with the world data like any other in-game entity, so restarting or moving your Minecraft server does not reset them.
