---
title: "Dental Hygienist"
description: "Administer oral hygiene care to patients. Assess patient oral hygiene problems or needs and maintain health records. Advise patients on oral health…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-hygienist"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Dental Hygienist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1292 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1292.00

Administer oral hygiene care to patients. Assess patient oral hygiene problems or needs and maintain health records. Advise patients on oral health maintenance and disease prevention. May provide advanced care such as providing fluoride treatment or administering topical anesthesia.

Also advertised as: Dental Hygienist; Hygienist; Licensed Dental Hygienist; Pediatric Dental Hygienist; Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $98,100 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $47.16/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $74,880 to $126,050, with the middle half between $83,570 and $108,480
- **Total US employment:** 222,740
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +7.0% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 15,300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 53/100 — 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 222,740 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $74,880 |
| 25th | $83,570 |
| 50th (median) | $98,100 |
| 75th | $108,480 |
| 90th | $126,050 |
| Mean (average) | $98,990 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $137,220 | $124,858 | 320 |
| AK | $132,690 | $129,632 | 790 |
| WA | $131,160 | $122,565 | 6,330 |
| CA | $124,930 | $112,834 | 24,500 |
| OR | $122,080 | $118,110 | 3,600 |
| NV | $115,290 | $115,314 | 1,510 |
| CO | $109,580 | $106,335 | 4,270 |
| MD | $107,830 | $102,735 | 3,500 |
| NJ | $107,040 | $98,378 | 7,230 |
| NY | $106,130 | $98,340 | 13,660 |
| MN | $103,970 | $105,424 | 4,110 |
| VA | $102,950 | $101,826 | 3,770 |
| NH | $101,250 | $97,202 | 1,360 |
| AZ | $101,010 | $100,331 | 4,530 |
| CT | $100,690 | $97,182 | 3,240 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-hygienist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/dental-hygienist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 221,600 in the 2024–2034 base year to 237,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 15,500 jobs, or +7.0%. Much faster than average: 7.0% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 15,300 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:** Associate's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 75.2% |
| First Professional Degree | 12.7% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 9.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 3.1% |

## What the work involves

- Record and review patient medical histories.
- Feel and visually examine gums for sores and signs of disease.
- Examine gums, using probes, to locate periodontal recessed gums and signs of gum disease.
- Clean calcareous deposits, accretions, and stains from teeth and beneath margins of gums, using dental instruments.
- Chart conditions of decay and disease for diagnosis and treatment by dentist.
- Attend continuing education courses to maintain or update skills.
- Apply fluorides or other cavity preventing agents to arrest dental decay.
- Maintain dental equipment and sharpen and sterilize dental instruments.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 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 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Finger Dexterity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral 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 | 5.35 |
| R — Realistic | 5.27 |
| I — Investigative | 4.52 |
| C — Conventional | 4.31 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.73 |
| A — Artistic | 1.12 |

### 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 | 77.6 |
| ISTJ | 72.8 |
| ESTJ | 64.4 |
| ESFJ | 62.4 |
| ISFP | 59.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Dental Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-assistant) — median $48,070
- [Surgical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-assistant) — median $66,800
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690
- [Veterinary Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-technician) — median $47,380
- [Ophthalmic Medical Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmic-medical-technician) — median $45,570
- [Surgical Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-technologist) — median $64,650
- [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Respiratory Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/respiratory-therapist) — median $82,280
- [Acute Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acute-care-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Licensed Practical Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/licensed-practical-nurse) — median $64,400

### Dental Hygienist compared with

- [Dental Hygienist vs Dental Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-hygienist-vs-dental-assistant) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements

## 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/dental-hygienist