---
title: "Ocularist"
description: "Makes and fits custom artificial eyes for people who have lost an eye to injury, cancer, or disease."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/ocularist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Ocularist

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-9082 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-9082.00

Makes and fits custom artificial eyes for people who have lost an eye to injury, cancer, or disease.

Also advertised as: Board Certified Ocularist; BCO; Artificial Eye Maker; Ocular Prosthetist; Prosthetic Eye Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $48,030 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $23.09/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $36,510 to $75,740, with the middle half between $42,210 and $60,580
- **Total US employment:** 11,280
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 55/100 — 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 11,280 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $36,510 |
| 25th | $42,210 |
| 50th (median) | $48,030 |
| 75th | $60,580 |
| 90th | $75,740 |
| Mean (average) | $52,730 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AZ | $72,760 | $72,271 | 300 |
| PA | $60,920 | $62,436 | 200 |
| MA | $59,810 | $56,554 | Not published by BLS |
| CO | $59,560 | $57,796 | Not published by BLS |
| VA | $56,260 | $55,646 | 260 |
| NH | $54,980 | $52,782 | 40 |
| NE | $54,770 | $60,786 | 170 |
| NC | $54,650 | $57,937 | 600 |
| CT | $54,430 | $52,534 | 130 |
| MN | $53,750 | $54,502 | Not published by BLS |
| SD | $52,950 | $59,772 | 30 |
| NJ | $52,400 | $48,160 | 310 |
| IA | $51,790 | $59,012 | 80 |
| CA | $51,530 | $46,541 | 1,300 |
| LA | $50,770 | $57,558 | Not published by BLS |

26 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 41 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/ocularist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/ocularist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 11,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 11,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 400 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,300 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Take impressions of the eye socket for a custom fit
- Shape and mold acrylic ocular prostheses
- Hand-paint irises and vessels to match a patient's natural eye
- Fit prostheses and adjust them for comfort and movement
- Make scleral shells to cover damaged eyes
- Polish and refit existing prostheses
- Teach patients how to handle and clean their prostheses
- Coordinate care with ophthalmologists and oculoplastic surgeons

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 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.

- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mechanical — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visualization — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.8 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 Realistic (R), Social (S), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 7.00 |
| S — Social | 3.98 |
| I — Investigative | 3.96 |
| C — Conventional | 3.66 |
| A — Artistic | 3.21 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.00 |

### 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 | 74.1 |
| ISTP | 73.0 |
| ISFJ | 69.5 |
| ISFP | 69.3 |
| INTJ | 62.6 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP, ISFJ, ISFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Medical Appliance Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-appliance-technician) — median $48,030
- [Dental Laboratory Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-laboratory-technician) — median $49,610
- [Medical Equipment Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-equipment-repairer) — median $61,660
- [Ophthalmic Laboratory Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmic-laboratory-technician) — median $39,460
- [Structural Metal Fabricator and Fitter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/structural-metal-fabricator-and-fitter) — median $51,330
- [Molder, Shaper, and Caster, Except Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molder-shaper-and-caster) — median $46,170
- [Surgical Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-technologist) — median $64,650
- [Calibration Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/calibration-technologist-and-technician) — median $67,820
- [Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/welding-soldering-and-brazing-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $47,920
- [Electrical and Electronic Equipment Assembler](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-equipment-assembler) — 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/ocularist