---
title: "Athletic Trainer"
description: "Evaluate and treat musculoskeletal injuries or illnesses. Provide preventive, therapeutic, emergency, and rehabilitative care."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/athletic-trainer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Athletic Trainer

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-9091 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-9091.00

Evaluate and treat musculoskeletal injuries or illnesses. Provide preventive, therapeutic, emergency, and rehabilitative care.

Also advertised as: Athletic Instructor; Athletic Lecturer; Athletic Trainer; Certified Athletic Trainer; Personal Trainer; Resident Athletic Trainer; Women's Athletic Trainer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $62,520 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,180 to $88,760, with the middle half between $55,130 and $74,630
- **Total US employment:** 30,500
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +12.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 47/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 30,500 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,180 |
| 25th | $55,130 |
| 50th (median) | $62,520 |
| 75th | $74,630 |
| 90th | $88,760 |
| Mean (average) | $66,620 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $78,490 | $70,891 | 1,760 |
| HI | $76,320 | $69,413 | 200 |
| NJ | $76,210 | $70,043 | 890 |
| DC | $74,450 | $67,743 | 100 |
| NM | $72,440 | $78,558 | 150 |
| MA | $70,010 | $66,199 | 630 |
| CT | $69,960 | $67,522 | 290 |
| NY | $66,230 | $61,369 | 1,370 |
| UT | $65,980 | $66,738 | 340 |
| MN | $65,390 | $66,304 | 820 |
| IL | $64,750 | $64,777 | 850 |
| GA | $64,590 | $67,077 | 860 |
| CO | $64,580 | $62,667 | 380 |
| TX | $64,150 | $66,095 | 3,130 |
| MD | $63,970 | $60,948 | 320 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/athletic-trainer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/athletic-trainer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 35,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 39,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 4,400 jobs, or +12.7%. Much faster than average: 12.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 54.3% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 37.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 8.3% |

## What the work involves

- Conduct an initial assessment of an athlete's injury or illness to provide emergency or continued care and to determine whether they should be referred to physicians for definitive diagnosis and treatment.
- Care for athletic injuries, using physical therapy equipment, techniques, or medication.
- Evaluate athletes' readiness to play and provide participation clearances when necessary and warranted.
- Perform general administrative tasks, such as keeping records or writing reports.
- Instruct coaches, athletes, parents, medical personnel, or community members in the care and prevention of athletic injuries.
- Apply protective or injury preventive devices, such as tape, bandages, or braces, to body parts, such as ankles, fingers, or wrists.
- Travel with athletic teams to be available at sporting events.
- Collaborate with physicians to develop and implement comprehensive rehabilitation programs for athletic injuries.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Realistic (R), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 5.75 |
| R — Realistic | 5.63 |
| I — Investigative | 4.40 |
| C — Conventional | 3.22 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.24 |
| A — Artistic | 1.15 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 70.6 |
| ISTJ | 64.9 |
| ISFP | 61.5 |
| ESFJ | 60.7 |
| ESTJ | 60.2 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Exercise Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/exercise-trainer-and-group-fitness-instructor) — median $47,160
- [Sports Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sports-medicine-physician) — median $265,930
- [Exercise Physiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/exercise-physiologist) — median $59,460
- [Physical Therapist Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-assistant) — median $68,380
- [Recreational Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreational-therapist) — median $61,960
- [Coach and Scout](https://nuecareer.com/careers/coach-and-scout) — median $47,320
- [Occupational Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapist) — median $100,330
- [Physical Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist) — median $102,760
- [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-physician) — median $265,930
- [Chiropractor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chiropractor) — median $79,200

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/athletic-trainer