---
title: "Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker"
description: "Assess and treat individuals with mental, emotional, or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drugs. Activities may…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker

**Category:** Community and Social Service · **SOC code:** 21-1023 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 21-1023.00

Assess and treat individuals with mental, emotional, or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drugs. Activities may include individual and group therapy, crisis intervention, case management, client advocacy, prevention, and education.

Also advertised as: Case Manager; Clinical Social Worker; Clinical Therapist; Clinician; Counselor; Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW); Mental Health Therapist; Social Worker.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $60,280 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $28.98/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $39,740 to $104,170, with the middle half between $47,070 and $79,730
- **Total US employment:** 132,810
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +9.7% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 13,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 35/100 — 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 132,810 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $39,740 |
| 25th | $47,070 |
| 50th (median) | $60,280 |
| 75th | $79,730 |
| 90th | $104,170 |
| Mean (average) | $68,030 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $79,380 | $73,554 | 14,820 |
| CA | $79,000 | $71,351 | 19,860 |
| CT | $78,640 | $75,900 | 1,540 |
| MN | $75,020 | $76,069 | 3,590 |
| MD | $73,580 | $70,104 | 2,250 |
| DC | $73,310 | $66,705 | 510 |
| VT | $73,210 | $74,736 | 320 |
| WA | $70,460 | $65,842 | 3,490 |
| OR | $68,210 | $65,992 | 2,230 |
| NJ | $66,590 | $61,201 | 2,420 |
| NM | $65,640 | $71,184 | 800 |
| CO | $65,620 | $63,677 | 1,640 |
| VA | $64,240 | $63,539 | 3,670 |
| NH | $63,900 | $61,345 | 320 |
| NV | $62,900 | $62,913 | 1,100 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 136,800 in the 2024–2034 base year to 150,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 13,300 jobs, or +9.7%. Much faster than average: 9.7% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 13,500 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:** Master's 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:** Internship/residency.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 77.2% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18.8% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Collaborate with counselors, physicians, or nurses to plan or coordinate treatment, drawing on social work experience and patient needs.
- Monitor, evaluate, and record client progress with respect to treatment goals.
- Increase social work knowledge by reviewing current literature, conducting social research, or attending seminars, training workshops, or classes.
- Assist clients in adhering to treatment plans, such as setting up appointments, arranging for transportation to appointments, or providing support.
- Modify treatment plans according to changes in client status.
- Educate clients or community members about mental or physical illness, abuse, medication, or available community resources.
- Counsel clients in individual or group sessions to assist them in dealing with substance abuse, mental or physical illness, poverty, unemployment, or physical abuse.
- Counsel or aid family members to assist them in understanding, dealing with, or supporting the client or patient.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — 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 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 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 | 6.97 |
| I — Investigative | 4.08 |
| C — Conventional | 3.12 |
| A — Artistic | 2.78 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.46 |
| R — Realistic | 1.71 |

### 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 | 70.9 |
| ESFP | 65.7 |
| ENFP | 65.6 |
| ESFJ | 64.7 |
| INFJ | 64.6 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Mental Health Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-counselor) — median $60,320
- [Healthcare Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/healthcare-social-worker) — median $67,880
- [Marriage and Family Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marriage-and-family-therapist) — median $66,940
- [Rehabilitation Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rehabilitation-counselor) — median $46,850
- [Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/substance-abuse-and-behavioral-disorder-counselor) — median $60,320
- [Clinical Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-psychologist) — median $100,580
- [School Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-social-worker) — median $59,550
- [Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advanced-practice-psychiatric-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Psychiatrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatrist) — median $281,870
- [Clinical Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-neuropsychologist) — median $110,840

## 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/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker