Occupation / job
Occupational Therapy Aides
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 $39,160 against the $50,020 all-occupation figure leaves Occupational Therapy Aides 22% behind — $10,860 across a year. Whether that is workable depends almost entirely on where you would be doing it.
National employment of 4,310 makes this a small field. Small fields are relationship markets: the people already in Occupational Therapy Aides tend to know who is hiring before the posting exists.
Therapy assistant roles suit people who like watching someone regain a capability over weeks, and who are comfortable being the person who insists on the repetitions.
No verified preparation time is on file for Occupational Therapy Aides. 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
$10,860 separates the bottom quarter at $35,920 from the top quarter at $46,780, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Occupational Therapy Aides pays less than moving out of it would.
A quarter of Occupational Therapy Aides earn under $35,920, which is $14,100 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if you would find it hard to keep pushing a patient who is in pain and would rather stop for the day.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 4,310 figure counts people already working as Occupational Therapy Aides, 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
At 1.3x between $35,920 and $46,780, this is a narrow distribution. $39,160 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
In cash terms the middle half of Occupational Therapy Aides runs $35,920 to $46,780 — $10,860 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $39,160.
Getting to $46,780, the 75th percentile, is worth $7,620 a year more than the $39,160 midpoint and $10,860 more than the $35,920 a quarter of Occupational Therapy Aides settle for.
The upper half of the middle range — $39,160 to $46,780, or $7,620 — is far longer than the lower half at $3,240. In a shape like this an average would flatter Occupational Therapy Aides considerably, and would describe nobody.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Occupational Therapy Aides is $18.82 an hour. The quarters sit at $17.26 and $22.49, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $39,160 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 Occupational Therapy Aides, the hourly figure is $39,160 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