The pay is low - about $45,000 on average - but like most people who do the nation's least-common jobs, he's in it for the lifestyle.

"You get to go sailing every day if you want to. And it's taken me all over the place," he said.

"In the US, because they tried to make the industry go semi-automated, there's no tradesmen left, so it's looked upon as quite a skilled trade there. It's also taken me to China, Denmark and Japan."

Sailmakers are among the nation's rarest workers. A total of 171 people listed the trade as their primary occupation when they filled out their tax return in 2015/16, Australian Taxation Office data shows.

Other rare jobs include bungee jump masters (six, all of them male) along with white water rafting guides (24 people), mountain or glacier guides (31), gunsmiths (59), civil celebrants (63), traditional Chinese medicine practitioners (182), composers (251), and illustrators (257).

It may be that some of these roles are often done as secondary jobs and are therefore not listed as primary sources of income.

Gunsmiths and illustrators earn about $53,000 on average annually, and composers make just under $43,000, the remainder of these other professions earn below $35,000. However, some of these jobs are primarily carried out part-time, which may reduce the median.

Check out the median income of your job using our interactive. To see the number of people who listed it as their primary occupation, click the 'in your category' button.

A sailmaker for 37 years, Mr Jackson says he is adamant the craft needs to stay hand-made.

"The automated way, it's just all glued and they don't last. It's going the way of the mobile phone where you can only have it for two years before it breaks," he said. "Everyone wants everything yesterday, nowadays."

Mr Jackson says a few other veterans have been scared off the job in recent years by the introduction of cheaper, Chinese-made sail cloth.

But, since it's been rejected by "anyone who's any good" in favour of higher-quality, more expensive German and American-made fabric, the challenge now rests with getting young people back on board.

"There's an apprenticeship for it and the sailmaking course, but it's too involved," he said.

"[Young people] all want to be a designer - they don't want to be involved in the manufacturing process.

"You have to respect what actually goes into the sail and what load it takes and all that sort of thing. And you have to be a fair sailor to know exactly what your on-screen actions do."

bungee jump masters, of which there are only six in Australia, face a different type of challenge when encouraging others to get involved in the industry - there is only one bungee jump tower in the country.

Jeremy Burke, whose job it is to operate that tower at AJ Hackett in Cairns, says he wishes there were more places to jump, so more people could get involved.

But unclear state-based legislation - which sees bungee jumping able to be prohibited on crown land in NSW - along with complicated insurance processes are generally a deterrent for others looking to get in on the market.

"I feel lucky in a way, being one of the only bungee jump masters in Australia," Mr Burke said.

"It was actually a bit of an accident getting into it, really ... I was working on the bar there, and a guy that was working on the [river] rafting side asked if I could look after the recovery area for a while.

"[I'd been a river rafting guide in a previous job] so I said no worries, I was happy to do that, and I sort of never left. That was eight years ago."

Mr Burke says that they average about 38 hours a week, but can work up to 50 hours during the school holiday season.

He says the job pays "not too bad a wage," with the average sitting at just less than $44,000 according to the ATO, but it's the ability to get outside and "have a bit of fun while you're working" that makes it all worthwhile.

"The atmosphere we have is a bit different to every other job I've had before. It's like the camaraderie, everyone has fun together and it's a bit more of a team environment," Mr Burke said.

"From being in a factory job when I was younger, to being outside ... it's absolutely great."

Median annual taxable-income figures include not only the job’s salary, but any possible additional earnings from rent, bank interest, dividends and bonuses. They are based on the amounts people stated as their earnings before tax but after deductions on their 2015/16 tax returns.

The median figure for each job includes everyone who listed it as their primary source of income, so it will include full-timers, part-timers and casuals. If your occupation has a lot of part-time staff it might have driven down the median income, making the amount listed as the full-time median a better guide to its expected earnings.