Occupation / job
Veterinary Technologists and 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
A $47,380 median against $50,020 across all occupations puts Veterinary Technologists and Technicians within $220 a month of the exact middle of the American labour market. Nothing in the headline number argues either way.
129,140 people are employed as Veterinary Technologists and Technicians. At that size there is a real ladder and enough churn that experience can be sold to a competitor rather than only accumulated where you are.
This work suits people who want into healthcare through a specific competence rather than a general one, and who are content that the scope of the role is drawn by regulation.
No verified preparation time is on file for Veterinary Technologists and Technicians. 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 Veterinary Technologists and Technicians earn under $38,910 and a quarter over $57,650 — 1.5x, or $18,740 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
A quarter of Veterinary Technologists and Technicians earn under $38,910, which is $11,110 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if shift work in a clinical setting would not be sustainable for you over a full career.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 129,140 people employed as Veterinary Technologists and Technicians; 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
$38,910 to $57,650 is a 1.5x range. Ranges this tight usually mean the employer set is homogeneous — the same kind of organisation paying the same kind of scale — so the lever you have is geography rather than employer.
The middle half of this field earns between $38,910 and $57,650. That is $18,740 of range, with $47,380 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $57,650, the 75th percentile, is worth $10,270 a year more than the $47,380 midpoint and $18,740 more than the $38,910 a quarter of Veterinary Technologists and Technicians settle for.
The climb from $47,380 to $57,650 is $10,270; the drop to $38,910 is $8,470. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Veterinary Technologists and Technicians and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Veterinary Technologists and Technicians is $22.77 an hour. The quarters sit at $18.70 and $27.71, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
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 Veterinary Technologists and Technicians for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $47,380 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $47,380 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