Occupation / job
Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
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
$96,590 is $3,880 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Diagnostic Medical Sonographers are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
National employment is 90,160. At that scale hiring is continuous, the market rate is well established, and your leverage comes from being credibly willing to go somewhere else.
Health technologist roles suit people who want clinical responsibility with a defined scope — a real technical skill, exercised on patients, without the open-ended liability of the diagnosing role.
No verified preparation time is on file for Diagnostic Medical Sonographers. 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
$26,500 separates the bottom quarter at $80,430 from the top quarter at $106,930, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Diagnostic Medical Sonographers pays less than moving out of it would.
The 25th percentile is $80,430, $30,410 above the $50,020 typical American job. When even the floor is this high, the thing to investigate is the entry requirement rather than the pay.
Avoid it if you would find a narrow, protocol-bound scope confining — the boundary of the role is set by regulation, not by your competence.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 90,160 people employed as Diagnostic Medical Sonographers; 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
At 1.3x between $80,430 and $106,930, this is a narrow distribution. $96,590 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
Put in money rather than ratios: $80,430 at the 25th percentile, $96,590 at the midpoint, $106,930 at the 75th. $26,500 separates the quarter of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $106,930. Reaching it from the $96,590 midpoint is $10,340 a year; reaching it from the $80,430 that the bottom quarter of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers earn is $26,500.
The midpoint sits high inside its own range: $16,160 above the $80,430 bottom quarter but only $10,340 below the $106,930 top quarter. Most of the distance in Diagnostic Medical Sonographers is spent climbing out of the bottom, and once you are past the middle there is not much further to go.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $46.43 at the midpoint for Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, $38.66 at the 25th percentile and $51.40 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $96,590 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, the hourly figure is $96,590 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