---
title: "Emergency Medical Technician"
description: "Assess injuries and illnesses and administer basic emergency medical care. May transport injured or sick persons to medical facilities."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Emergency Medical Technician

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2042 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2042.00

Assess injuries and illnesses and administer basic emergency medical care. May transport injured or sick persons to medical facilities.

Also advertised as: Emergency Medical Technician (EMT); First Responder.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $44,470 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.38/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $34,130 to $62,500, with the middle half between $37,960 and $50,100
- **Total US employment:** 180,510
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 14,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** not scored for this occupation

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 180,510 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $34,130 |
| 25th | $37,960 |
| 50th (median) | $44,470 |
| 75th | $50,100 |
| 90th | $62,500 |
| Mean (average) | $46,830 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| HI | $66,410 | $60,400 | 560 |
| AK | $57,440 | $56,116 | 310 |
| NJ | $53,610 | $49,272 | 6,120 |
| WA | $52,690 | $49,237 | 2,940 |
| RI | $51,290 | $50,147 | 430 |
| CT | $50,640 | $48,876 | 2,190 |
| MA | $50,230 | $47,496 | 4,550 |
| OR | $49,270 | $47,668 | 1,970 |
| NY | $48,400 | $44,848 | 14,840 |
| MD | $48,100 | $45,827 | 3,400 |
| MN | $48,090 | $48,762 | 3,160 |
| WY | $47,070 | $50,782 | 400 |
| VI | $47,040 | No BEA price parity | 40 |
| DE | $46,790 | $46,880 | 950 |
| NH | $46,790 | $44,919 | 1,010 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/emergency-medical-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 181,000 in the 2024–2034 base year to 190,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 9,200 jobs, or +5.1%. Faster than average: 5.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 14,100 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:** Postsecondary nondegree award (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.

## What the work involves

- Administer first aid treatment or life support care to sick or injured persons in prehospital settings.
- Assess nature and extent of illness or injury to establish and prioritize medical procedures.
- Attend training classes to maintain certification licensure, keep abreast of new developments in the field, or maintain existing knowledge.
- Comfort and reassure patients.
- Communicate with dispatchers or treatment center personnel to provide information about situation, to arrange reception of survivors, or to receive instructions for further treatment.
- Coordinate work with other emergency medical team members or police or fire department personnel.
- Decontaminate ambulance interior following treatment of patient with infectious disease, and report case to proper authorities.
- Drive mobile intensive care unit to specified location, following instructions from emergency medical dispatcher.

## 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 | 5.46 |
| I — Investigative | 4.57 |
| C — Conventional | 3.76 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.56 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### 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 | 74.0 |
| ISTJ | 69.6 |
| ISFP | 64.0 |
| ISTP | 61.6 |
| ESTJ | 58.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Ambulance Driver and Attendant, Except Emergency Medical Technicians](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ambulance-driver-and-attendant) — median $35,450
- [Surgical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-assistant) — median $66,800
- [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Licensed Practical Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/licensed-practical-nurse) — median $64,400
- [Cardiovascular Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiovascular-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,310
- [Acute Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acute-care-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Respiratory Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/respiratory-therapist) — median $82,280
- [Psychiatric Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-technician) — median $45,130

## 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/emergency-medical-technician