---
title: "Cytotechnologist"
description: "Stain, mount, and study cells to detect evidence of cancer, hormonal abnormalities, and other pathological conditions following established standards and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cytotechnologist"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Cytotechnologist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2011.02

Stain, mount, and study cells to detect evidence of cancer, hormonal abnormalities, and other pathological conditions following established standards and practices.

Also advertised as: Cytologist; Cytology Applications Specialist; Cytology Coordinator; Cytology Technical Specialist; Cytotechnologist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $62,930 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.26/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,910 to $100,990, with the middle half between $47,650 and $81,450
- **Total US employment:** 332,940
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +1.7% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 22,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 17/100 — 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 332,940 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,910 |
| 25th | $47,650 |
| 50th (median) | $62,930 |
| 75th | $81,450 |
| 90th | $100,990 |
| Mean (average) | $67,350 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $97,280 | $90,140 | 16,460 |
| OR | $83,010 | $80,311 | 2,660 |
| NH | $81,020 | $77,780 | 800 |
| MA | $79,120 | $74,813 | 10,850 |
| VT | $78,680 | $80,320 | 460 |
| DC | $76,560 | $69,663 | 960 |
| CA | $76,010 | $68,651 | 29,210 |
| RI | $75,780 | $74,091 | 1,060 |
| MN | $74,440 | $75,481 | 7,190 |
| WA | $72,760 | $67,992 | 7,430 |
| IL | $71,950 | $71,980 | 10,330 |
| CO | $70,050 | $67,975 | 5,000 |
| ME | $68,690 | $70,778 | 1,250 |
| DE | $68,630 | $68,762 | 690 |
| NJ | $68,450 | $62,911 | 7,000 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cytotechnologist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cytotechnologist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 351,200 in the 2024–2034 base year to 357,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 6,000 jobs, or +1.7%. Slower than average: 1.7% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 22,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor'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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 50.0% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 36.4% |
| Master's Degree | 13.6% |

## What the work involves

- Examine cell samples to detect abnormalities in the color, shape, or size of cellular components and patterns.
- Document specimens by verifying patients' and specimens' information.
- Submit slides with abnormal cell structures to pathologists for further examination.
- Prepare and analyze samples, such as Papanicolaou (PAP) smear body fluids and fine needle aspirations (FNAs), to detect abnormal conditions.
- Examine specimens, using microscopes, to evaluate specimen quality.
- Maintain effective laboratory operations by adhering to standards of specimen collection, preparation, or laboratory safety.
- Provide patient clinical data or microscopic findings to assist pathologists in the preparation of pathology reports.
- Assist pathologists or other physicians to collect cell samples by fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy or other method.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 2.9 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.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Biology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — 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 Investigative (I), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.06 |
| R — Realistic | 5.92 |
| C — Conventional | 4.89 |
| S — Social | 2.41 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.84 |
| A — Artistic | 1.10 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 91.1 |
| ISTP | 80.2 |
| INTJ | 78.0 |
| ISFJ | 70.3 |
| ESTJ | 68.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

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

- [Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-clinical-laboratory-technologist) — median $62,930
- [Cytogenetic Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cytogenetic-technologist) — median $62,930
- [Histotechnologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histotechnologist) — median $62,930
- [Histology Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histology-technician) — median $62,930
- [Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pathologist) — median $312,400
- [Neurodiagnostic Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurodiagnostic-technologist) — median $50,290
- [Radiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiologist) — median $420,860
- [Phlebotomist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/phlebotomist) — median $45,230
- [Microbiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/microbiologist) — median $87,990
- [Medical Scientist, Except Epidemiologists](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-scientist) — median $103,410

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 30.3 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/cytotechnologist