---
title: "Nuclear Pharmacist"
description: "A pharmacist who prepares and dispenses radioactive drugs used in medical imaging scans and cancer treatments."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-pharmacist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Nuclear Pharmacist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1051.00

A pharmacist who prepares and dispenses radioactive drugs used in medical imaging scans and cancer treatments.

Also advertised as: Board Certified Nuclear Pharmacist; BCNP; Radiopharmacist; Radiopharmacy Pharmacist; Authorized Nuclear Pharmacist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $140,910 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $67.75/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $99,290 to $174,230, with the middle half between $129,380 and $161,840
- **Total US employment:** 321,970
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 12,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 34/100 — 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 321,970 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $99,290 |
| 25th | $129,380 |
| 50th (median) | $140,910 |
| 75th | $161,840 |
| 90th | $174,230 |
| Mean (average) | $140,920 |

### 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 | $167,310 | $163,454 | 560 |
| OR | $165,960 | $160,563 | 3,250 |
| CA | $164,610 | $148,672 | 34,030 |
| HI | $163,220 | $148,448 | 1,190 |
| WA | $160,610 | $150,085 | 7,350 |
| MN | $159,740 | $161,974 | 6,310 |
| CO | $156,030 | $151,409 | 4,560 |
| DC | $153,400 | $139,580 | 850 |
| DE | $152,880 | $153,174 | 790 |
| WI | $148,740 | $158,074 | 5,730 |
| NM | $147,000 | $159,415 | 1,730 |
| AZ | $146,930 | $145,942 | 6,900 |
| SD | $146,790 | $165,703 | 1,280 |
| ID | $144,900 | $151,737 | 1,790 |
| IN | $144,290 | $154,604 | 6,430 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-pharmacist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/nuclear-pharmacist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 325,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 342,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 17,100 jobs, or +5.2%. Faster than average: 5.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 12,500 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 | 78.4% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 11.5% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 5.1% |
| First Professional Degree | 3.4% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 1.8% |

## What the work involves

- Compound radiopharmaceutical doses in shielded aseptic environments
- Calculate doses based on radioactive decay and scan times
- Perform quality control tests on radiopharmaceuticals
- Dispense and package doses for delivery to hospitals
- Monitor radiation exposure and enforce safety procedures
- Advise physicians on radiopharmaceutical selection and dosing
- Maintain records required by radiation regulators
- Supervise nuclear pharmacy technicians and drivers

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- 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
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.1 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
- 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — 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

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 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 Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.77 |
| C — Conventional | 4.81 |
| S — Social | 4.71 |
| R — Realistic | 3.41 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.62 |
| A — Artistic | 1.48 |

### 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 | 71.3 |
| ISFJ | 69.3 |
| ESTJ | 62.4 |
| INTJ | 61.3 |
| ISTP | 55.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Pharmacist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pharmacist) — median $140,910
- [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550
- [Nurse Practitioner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-practitioner) — median $132,300
- [Family Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/family-medicine-physician) — median $244,180
- [Physician Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physician-assistant) — median $135,880
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Clinical Nurse Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-nurse-specialist) — median $97,550
- [Allergist and Immunologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/allergist-and-immunologist) — median $265,930
- [Pediatrician, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatrician-general) — median $210,040
- [Preventive Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/preventive-medicine-physician) — median $265,930

## 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/nuclear-pharmacist