Occupation / job
Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
A median of $35,450 against the $50,020 all-occupation figure leaves Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians 29% behind — $14,570 across a year. Whether that is workable depends almost entirely on where you would be doing it.
Nationally 12,630 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.
This work suits people who want to be left alone to do the job and are judged on whether the load arrived on time and intact.
No verified preparation time is on file for Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$7,660 separates the bottom quarter at $30,750 from the top quarter at $38,410, a ratio of 1.2x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians pays less than moving out of it would.
The bottom quarter is under $30,750, $19,270 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.
Avoid it if the sedentary hours and the food available on the road would be a health problem for you.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 12,630 people employed as Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
A 1.2x ratio from $30,750 to $38,410 makes $35,450 a dependable planning number. Dependable is the whole offer here — there is not much room above it.
The middle half of this field earns between $30,750 and $38,410. That is $7,660 of range, with $35,450 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $38,410. Reaching it from the $35,450 midpoint is $2,960 a year; reaching it from the $30,750 that the bottom quarter of Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians earn is $7,660.
Getting from $30,750 to the $35,450 midpoint is $4,700; getting from there to $38,410 is only $2,960. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians is $17.04 an hour. The quarters sit at $14.78 and $18.46, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $35,450 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians, the hourly figure is $35,450 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else