---
title: "Medical Dosimetrist"
description: "Generate radiation treatment plans, develop radiation dose calculations, communicate and supervise the treatment plan implementation, and consult with…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-dosimetrist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Medical Dosimetrist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2036 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2036.00

Generate radiation treatment plans, develop radiation dose calculations, communicate and supervise the treatment plan implementation, and consult with members of radiation oncology team.

Also advertised as: CMD (Certified Medical Dosimetrist); Dosimetrist; Medical Dosimetrist; Medical Physicist; Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $147,470 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $70.90/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $111,670 to $185,450, with the middle half between $132,080 and $167,030
- **Total US employment:** 3,410
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 15/100 — 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 3,410 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $111,670 |
| 25th | $132,080 |
| 50th (median) | $147,470 |
| 75th | $167,030 |
| 90th | $185,450 |
| Mean (average) | $148,500 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $189,280 | $176,876 | 60 |
| OR | $183,990 | $178,007 | 40 |
| NJ | $170,650 | $156,840 | 90 |
| NY | $166,540 | $154,317 | 300 |
| IL | $163,860 | $163,929 | 140 |
| GA | $155,390 | $161,372 | 140 |
| FL | $153,490 | $148,423 | 320 |
| OH | $150,900 | $162,653 | Not published by BLS |
| KS | $150,670 | $167,285 | 40 |
| NC | $147,830 | $156,722 | 140 |
| MD | $147,470 | $140,502 | 40 |
| IN | $144,320 | $154,636 | 60 |
| OK | $143,120 | $162,927 | 30 |
| PA | $142,850 | $146,405 | 160 |
| VA | $142,830 | $141,270 | 90 |

12 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 27 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-dosimetrist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/medical-dosimetrist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 3,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 3,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 200 jobs, or +5.0%. Faster than average: 5.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 40.0% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 35.0% |
| Master's Degree | 15.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 5.0% |
| First Professional Degree | 5.0% |

## What the work involves

- Design the arrangement of radiation fields to reduce exposure to critical patient structures, such as organs, using computers, manuals, and guides.
- Plan the use of beam modifying devices, such as compensators, shields, and wedge filters, to ensure safe and effective delivery of radiation treatment.
- Identify and outline bodily structures, using imaging procedures, such as x-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, or positron emission tomography.
- Calculate the delivery of radiation treatment, such as the amount or extent of radiation per session, based on the prescribed course of radiation therapy.
- Calculate, or verify calculations of, prescribed radiation doses.
- Develop radiation treatment plans in consultation with members of the radiation oncology team.
- Advise oncology team members on use of beam modifying or immobilization devices in radiation treatment plans.
- Supervise or perform simulations for tumor localizations, using imaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, or positron emission tomography scans.

## 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.4 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 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Physics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 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
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — 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 Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.30 |
| C — Conventional | 5.00 |
| R — Realistic | 4.57 |
| S — Social | 3.57 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.21 |
| A — Artistic | 1.32 |

### 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 | 85.6 |
| ISFJ | 74.2 |
| ISTP | 70.7 |
| INTJ | 69.2 |
| ESTJ | 68.8 |

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.

- [Radiation Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiation-therapist) — median $105,310
- [Nuclear Medicine Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-medicine-technologist) — median $101,370
- [Radiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiologist) — median $420,860
- [Radiologic Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiologic-technologist-and-technician) — median $80,110
- [Nuclear Monitoring Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-monitoring-technician) — median $110,240
- [Cardiovascular Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiovascular-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,310
- [Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-clinical-laboratory-technologist) — median $62,930
- [Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/magnetic-resonance-imaging-technologist) — median $95,480
- [Diagnostic Medical Sonographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/diagnostic-medical-sonographer) — median $96,590
- [Neurodiagnostic Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurodiagnostic-technologist) — median $50,290

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 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 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/medical-dosimetrist