---
title: "Forensic Odontologist"
description: "A dentist who uses dental records and teeth to identify human remains, assess bite injuries and estimate age for medical examiners and courts."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/forensic-odontologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Forensic Odontologist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1021.00

A dentist who uses dental records and teeth to identify human remains, assess bite injuries and estimate age for medical examiners and courts.

Also advertised as: Forensic Dentist; Forensic Dental Consultant; Board Certified Forensic Odontologist; Dental Identification Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $170,950 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $82.19/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $86,250 to $319,630, with the middle half between $125,710 and $224,040
- **Total US employment:** 124,390
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,200 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 124,390 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $86,250 |
| 25th | $125,710 |
| 50th (median) | $170,950 |
| 75th | $224,040 |
| 90th | $319,630 |
| Mean (average) | $191,350 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AK | $230,990 | $225,667 | 310 |
| ND | $220,660 | $248,047 | 260 |
| MN | $219,200 | $222,265 | 2,370 |
| TN | $215,290 | $234,342 | 2,200 |
| OR | $211,690 | $204,806 | 1,660 |
| ME | $209,200 | $215,559 | 310 |
| NC | $207,000 | $219,452 | 4,140 |
| GA | $206,760 | $214,720 | 2,620 |
| MO | $204,960 | $225,685 | 2,440 |
| VT | $204,960 | $209,233 | 240 |
| VA | $197,110 | $194,958 | 4,140 |
| AZ | $194,180 | $192,874 | 3,470 |
| WI | $193,690 | $205,845 | 2,560 |
| NY | $183,060 | $169,624 | 7,340 |
| MA | $181,600 | $171,714 | 2,780 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/forensic-odontologist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/forensic-odontologist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 141,900 in the 2025–2035 base year to 150,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 8,100 jobs, or +5.7%. Faster than average: 5.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,200 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 | 61.9% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 38.1% |

## What the work involves

- Chart and X-ray the teeth of unidentified remains
- Compare postmortem dental findings with antemortem dental records
- Estimate age from tooth development and wear
- Document and photograph oral and facial injuries in abuse cases
- Assist dental identification teams in mass fatality incidents
- Write forensic reports for medical examiners and coroners
- Testify as an expert witness on dental evidence

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 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 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Finger Dexterity — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 4.1 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), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.64 |
| R — Realistic | 5.28 |
| S — Social | 4.53 |
| C — Conventional | 3.71 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.00 |
| A — Artistic | 1.17 |

### 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 | 77.5 |
| ISTP | 70.5 |
| ISFJ | 68.1 |
| INTJ | 64.6 |
| ESTJ | 61.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Dentist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dentist) — median $170,950
- [Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oral-and-maxillofacial-surgeon) — median $352,220
- [Prosthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prosthodontist) — median $311,180
- [Orthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist) — median $289,140
- [Dental Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-assistant) — median $48,070
- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Dental Hygienist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-hygienist) — median $98,100
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) — median $300,080

## 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/
- **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/forensic-odontologist