---
title: "Chiropractor"
description: "Assess, treat, and care for patients by manipulation of spine and musculoskeletal system. May provide spinal adjustment or address sacral or pelvic…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/chiropractor"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Chiropractor

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1011.00

Assess, treat, and care for patients by manipulation of spine and musculoskeletal system. May provide spinal adjustment or address sacral or pelvic misalignment.

Also advertised as: Chiropractic Doctor (DC); Chiropractic Neurologist; Chiropractic Physician.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $79,200 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $38.08/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $43,460 to $146,080, with the middle half between $60,070 and $105,050
- **Total US employment:** 39,630
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +8.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 52/100 — 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 39,630 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $43,460 |
| 25th | $60,070 |
| 50th (median) | $79,200 |
| 75th | $105,050 |
| 90th | $146,080 |
| Mean (average) | $90,520 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NJ | $134,990 | $124,066 | 1,370 |
| NY | $120,950 | $112,073 | 1,360 |
| ME | $107,300 | $110,562 | 250 |
| WA | $104,070 | $97,250 | 1,130 |
| AK | $103,500 | $101,115 | 90 |
| AZ | $100,260 | $99,586 | 1,050 |
| NC | $91,540 | $97,046 | 1,020 |
| VA | $88,030 | $87,069 | 900 |
| TX | $87,520 | $90,174 | 2,840 |
| OK | $85,580 | $97,424 | 500 |
| MD | $85,330 | $81,298 | 390 |
| FL | $84,280 | $81,498 | 3,220 |
| TN | $83,990 | $91,423 | 500 |
| WV | $83,160 | $92,919 | 60 |
| WI | $83,020 | $88,230 | 1,210 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/chiropractor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/chiropractor.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 61,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 67,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 5,300 jobs, or +8.7%. Much faster than average: 8.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,600 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:** Doctoral or professional 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Doctoral Degree | 82.1% |
| First Professional Degree | 7.5% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 6.8% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 3.6% |

## What the work involves

- Evaluate the functioning of the neuromuscularskeletal system and the spine using systems of chiropractic diagnosis.
- Maintain accurate case histories of patients.
- Consult with or refer patients to appropriate health practitioners when necessary.
- Advise patients about recommended courses of treatment.
- Counsel patients about nutrition, exercise, sleeping habits, stress management, or other matters.
- Provide guidance to patients on exercises they can perform to improve mobility.
- Perform a series of manual adjustments to the spine or other articulations of the body to correct the musculoskeletal system.
- Obtain and record patients' medical histories.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 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 | 5.56 |
| R — Realistic | 5.53 |
| I — Investigative | 4.77 |
| C — Conventional | 3.55 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.13 |
| A — Artistic | 1.34 |

### 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 | 72.9 |
| ISTJ | 68.8 |
| ISFP | 60.8 |
| ESTJ | 60.8 |
| ESFJ | 59.6 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Neurologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurologist) — median $248,560
- [Cardiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiologist) — median $496,010
- [Naturopathic Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/naturopathic-physician) — median $115,210
- [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-physician) — median $265,930
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Acupuncturist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acupuncturist) — median $76,040
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550

## 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/chiropractor