Occupation / job
Genetic Counselors
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
$100,040 against a $50,020 national midpoint is 100% more, or $24.04 an hour. Almost nothing pays this much more without a long, expensive or restricted route in — read that route before reading the number again.
National employment of 3,740 makes this a small field. Small fields are relationship markets: the people already in Genetic Counselors tend to know who is hiring before the posting exists.
These healthcare roles sit at the edge of the clinical team and suit people who want health work organised around a defined technique or population rather than around a ward.
We carry no verified training length for Genetic Counselors — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The quarters sit at $88,900 and $116,140, $2,270 a month apart at a ratio of 1.3x. Narrow enough that what you can expect is close to what everyone else gets.
The 25th percentile is $88,900, $38,880 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 need a large local market — these roles exist in far fewer settings than the mainstream clinical ones.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 3,740 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
At 1.3x between $88,900 and $116,140, this is a narrow distribution. $100,040 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: $88,900 at the 25th percentile, $100,040 at the midpoint, $116,140 at the 75th. $27,240 separates the quarter of Genetic Counselors at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $116,140. Reaching it from the $100,040 midpoint is $16,100 a year; reaching it from the $88,900 that the bottom quarter of Genetic Counselors earn is $27,240.
$16,100 separates $100,040 from the $116,140 top quarter, while only $11,140 separates it from $88,900. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Genetic Counselors has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $48.09 at the midpoint for Genetic Counselors, $42.74 at the 25th percentile and $55.83 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Genetic Counselors. The self-employed are excluded, so $100,040 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Genetic Counselors, the hourly figure is $100,040 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