Occupation / job
Nuclear 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
$110,240 puts Nuclear Technicians among the highest medians BLS publishes, roughly 120% above the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Pay at this level always has a gate in front of it: a residency, a bar exam, a clearance, or a decade.
National employment of 6,470 makes this a small field. Small fields are relationship markets: the people already in Nuclear Technicians tend to know who is hiring before the posting exists.
These roles suit people who want to be in the lab or the field without the grant-writing, and who take the craft of measurement seriously in its own right.
How long it takes to become one of the 6,470 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
$24,880 separates the bottom quarter at $99,110 from the top quarter at $123,990, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Nuclear Technicians pays less than moving out of it would.
The 25th percentile is $99,110, $49,090 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 resent the ceiling — without the higher degree this role does not usually lead the work.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 6,470 figure counts people already working as Nuclear Technicians, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
A 1.3x spread means the top quarter of Nuclear Technicians is not doing a different job from the bottom quarter, just a slightly better-paid version of the same one. Between $99,110 and $123,990 is the whole of the negotiation.
Put in money rather than ratios: $99,110 at the 25th percentile, $110,240 at the midpoint, $123,990 at the 75th. $24,880 separates the quarter of Nuclear Technicians at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $123,990. Reaching it from the $110,240 midpoint is $13,750 a year; reaching it from the $99,110 that the bottom quarter of Nuclear Technicians earn is $24,880.
The climb from $110,240 to $123,990 is $13,750; the drop to $99,110 is $11,130. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Nuclear Technicians and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $53.00 at the midpoint for Nuclear Technicians, $47.64 at the 25th percentile and $59.61 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 Nuclear Technicians. The self-employed are excluded, so $110,240 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Nuclear Technicians, the hourly figure is $110,240 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