---
title: "Orthodontist"
description: "Examine, diagnose, and treat dental malocclusions and oral cavity anomalies. Design and fabricate appliances to realign teeth and jaws to produce and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Orthodontist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1023 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1023.00

Examine, diagnose, and treat dental malocclusions and oral cavity anomalies. Design and fabricate appliances to realign teeth and jaws to produce and maintain normal function and to improve appearance.

Also advertised as: Board Certified Orthodontist; Orthodontic Dentist; Orthodontic Specialist; Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics Specialist; Orthodontics Doctor; Orthodontist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $289,140 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $139.01/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $99,850 to $416,000, with the middle half between $146,580 and $342,300
- **Total US employment:** 6,210
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 49/100 — 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 6,210 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $99,850 |
| 25th | $146,580 |
| 50th (median) | $289,140 |
| 75th | $342,300 |
| 90th | $416,000 |
| Mean (average) | $259,400 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CT | $478,680 | $462,002 | Not published by BLS |
| CO | $416,000 | $403,680 | 160 |
| MD | $361,030 | $343,972 | Not published by BLS |
| MI | $357,090 | $371,130 | 140 |
| IL | $343,100 | $343,244 | Not published by BLS |
| TN | $339,610 | $369,664 | Not published by BLS |
| MO | $332,630 | $366,264 | Not published by BLS |
| MT | $312,840 | $330,540 | Not published by BLS |
| SC | $311,450 | $332,217 | Not published by BLS |
| PA | $311,180 | $318,923 | Not published by BLS |
| ME | $301,250 | $310,407 | 60 |
| WA | $290,430 | $271,397 | 290 |
| AZ | $272,330 | $270,499 | 120 |
| AL | $253,670 | $285,590 | Not published by BLS |
| IN | $239,200+ | Not comparable (top-coded) | Not published by BLS |

7 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 22 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/orthodontist.

Values shown as $239,200+ exceed the BLS publication ceiling; exact figures are not published.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 7,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 7,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 400 jobs, or +6.0%. Faster than average: 6.0% 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:** 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:** 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 68.9% |
| Doctoral Degree | 12.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 7.7% |
| First Professional Degree | 7.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 2.7% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 1.5% |

## What the work involves

- Diagnose teeth and jaw or other dental-facial abnormalities.
- Examine patients to assess abnormalities of jaw development, tooth position, and other dental-facial structures.
- Study diagnostic records, such as medical or dental histories, plaster models of the teeth, photos of a patient's face and teeth, and X-rays, to develop patient treatment plans.
- Fit dental appliances in patients' mouths to alter the position and relationship of teeth and jaws or to realign teeth.
- Adjust dental appliances to produce and maintain normal function.
- Provide patients with proposed treatment plans and cost estimates.
- Advise patients to comply with treatment plans.
- Prepare diagnostic and treatment records.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- 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
- 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
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 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
- 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
- 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), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.72 |
| R — Realistic | 5.60 |
| C — Conventional | 4.58 |
| S — Social | 4.01 |
| A — Artistic | 1.57 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.45 |

### 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 | 82.6 |
| ISTP | 73.8 |
| ISFJ | 71.7 |
| INTJ | 70.0 |
| ESTJ | 62.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Dentist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dentist) — median $170,950
- [Prosthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prosthodontist) — median $311,180
- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oral-and-maxillofacial-surgeon) — median $352,220
- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Dental Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-assistant) — median $48,070
- [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) — median $300,080
- [Cardiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiologist) — median $496,010
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Chiropractor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chiropractor) — median $79,200

## 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/orthodontist