---
title: "Lactation Consultant"
description: "Helps parents establish and maintain breastfeeding and solves clinical feeding problems for newborns and infants."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/lactation-consultant"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Lactation Consultant

**Category:** Community and Social Service · **SOC code:** 21-1091 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 21-1091.00

Helps parents establish and maintain breastfeeding and solves clinical feeding problems for newborns and infants.

Also advertised as: International Board Certified Lactation Consultant; IBCLC; Breastfeeding Specialist; Lactation Specialist; Hospital Lactation Consultant.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $64,070 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.80/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $42,990 to $118,200, with the middle half between $50,620 and $87,130
- **Total US employment:** 65,690
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 42/100 — 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 65,690 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $42,990 |
| 25th | $50,620 |
| 50th (median) | $64,070 |
| 75th | $87,130 |
| 90th | $118,200 |
| Mean (average) | $73,280 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MD | $104,470 | $99,534 | 2,220 |
| DC | $103,330 | $94,021 | 680 |
| GA | $99,400 | $103,227 | 3,210 |
| PA | $80,670 | $82,677 | 2,690 |
| MN | $78,400 | $79,496 | 1,250 |
| WA | $77,420 | $72,346 | 1,750 |
| IA | $75,750 | $86,313 | 540 |
| OR | $75,500 | $73,045 | 840 |
| RI | $75,360 | $73,680 | 150 |
| CO | $74,150 | $71,954 | 750 |
| WI | $74,040 | $78,686 | 900 |
| NJ | $73,740 | $67,773 | 1,420 |
| GU | $73,070 | No BEA price parity | 30 |
| AK | $71,940 | $70,282 | 310 |
| NH | $69,990 | $67,191 | 250 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 70,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 74,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 3,900 jobs, or +5.6%. Faster than average: 5.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,900 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:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable 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 | 62.2% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 30.9% |
| Master's Degree | 3.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 2.6% |
| Doctoral Degree | 0.9% |

## What the work involves

- Assess infant latch, suck, and feeding patterns
- Develop individualized feeding and pumping plans
- Weigh infants before and after feeding to measure milk transfer
- Help parents of premature and hospitalized infants establish milk supply
- Identify feeding problems that need referral to a physician
- Teach prenatal and postpartum breastfeeding classes
- Recommend and fit breast pumps and feeding devices
- Document consultations and communicate with infant and parent care providers

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 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
- Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- 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
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 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), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.15 |
| I — Investigative | 5.37 |
| C — Conventional | 3.95 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.73 |
| A — Artistic | 2.54 |
| R — Realistic | 1.66 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 68.9 |
| ESFJ | 61.7 |
| INFJ | 61.2 |
| ENFP | 59.7 |
| ESFP | 56.3 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Health Education Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-education-specialist) — median $64,070
- [Community Health Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/community-health-worker) — median $51,850
- [Nursing Instructor and Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-instructor-and-teacher-postsecondary) — median $80,250
- [Rehabilitation Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rehabilitation-counselor) — median $46,850
- [Health Informatics Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-informatics-specialist) — median $105,850
- [Healthcare Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/healthcare-social-worker) — median $67,880
- [Health Specialties Teacher, Postsecondary](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-specialties-teacher-postsecondary) — median $107,310
- [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) — median $59,550
- [Dietitian](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dietitian) — median $76,400
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930

## 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/lactation-consultant