Occupation / job
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists
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
How many people are qualified for this, and how many are doing it
The pay figure above only describes people who got the job. This is the part it leaves out.
There are 371,444 people holding at least one ARRT credential (2026). Federal employment records account for 308,030 people working in Radiologic Technologists and Technicians, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists, Nuclear Medicine Technologists, Radiation Therapists — 82.9%.
The remainder is a ceiling, not an unemployment rate. Holding the credential is not the same as wanting a job with it, and the remainder also holds everyone who moved into management or teaching, retired without giving the credential up, or works self-employed in a way the employment survey misses. What the pair does establish is that the pay figure above is a survivor's figure, and roughly how many people it is silent about. Everything else that gap contains
Denominator: people holding at least one ARRT credential = 371,444 (Standing count of people holding the credential, ARRT census, last updated July 2026) · ARRT, Credential Statistics by Location and Discipline census · view
Who this suits
At $95,480 against a $50,020 national midpoint, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists pays 91% more than the typical American job — $45,460 a year of difference. Read the entry requirements before the number.
Employment stands at 43,390. Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists is common enough to be recruited for continuously and specific enough that the experience travels — the combination that makes changing employer a working pay rise.
These roles suit people who want to be genuinely expert at one clinical technique, applied all day, to people who need it done properly.
No verified preparation time is on file for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists. 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
A quarter of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists earn under $81,040 and a quarter over $106,340: 1.3x, and $25,300 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.
Even at the 25th percentile Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists pays $81,040, $31,020 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
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 43,390 people employed as Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists; 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 1.3x spread means the top quarter of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists is not doing a different job from the bottom quarter, just a slightly better-paid version of the same one. Between $81,040 and $106,340 is the whole of the negotiation.
Put in money rather than ratios: $81,040 at the 25th percentile, $95,480 at the midpoint, $106,340 at the 75th. $25,300 separates the quarter of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $106,340. Reaching it from the $95,480 midpoint is $10,860 a year; reaching it from the $81,040 that the bottom quarter of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists earn is $25,300.
The fall from $95,480 to the $81,040 bottom quarter is $14,440; the climb to the $106,340 top quarter is $10,860. Slightly more of the range lies below the midpoint than above it, so the downside is the bigger movement here.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $38.96 at the bottom quarter, $45.90 at the midpoint, $51.12 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
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 Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $95,480 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $95,480 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else