---
title: "Orthoptist"
description: "Diagnose and treat visual system disorders such as binocular vision and eye movement impairments."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthoptist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Orthoptist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1299 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1299.02

Diagnose and treat visual system disorders such as binocular vision and eye movement impairments.

Also advertised as: Clinical Orthoptist (CO); CO (Certified Orthoptist).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $115,210 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $55.39/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $65,210 to $195,190, with the middle half between $83,780 and $161,470
- **Total US employment:** 28,630
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 39/100 — 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 28,630 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $65,210 |
| 25th | $83,780 |
| 50th (median) | $115,210 |
| 75th | $161,470 |
| 90th | $195,190 |
| Mean (average) | $127,660 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MD | $164,670 | $156,890 | 5,840 |
| DC | $151,990 | $138,297 | 490 |
| NY | $127,360 | $118,012 | 750 |
| GA | $126,300 | $131,162 | 3,130 |
| CA | $125,550 | $113,394 | 1,600 |
| MT | $122,930 | $129,885 | 110 |
| CT | $119,970 | $115,790 | 410 |
| HI | $119,520 | $108,703 | 90 |
| UT | $119,430 | $120,802 | 310 |
| NC | $117,210 | $124,261 | 800 |
| MO | $112,260 | $123,611 | 420 |
| ME | $112,010 | $115,415 | 160 |
| AK | $110,220 | $107,680 | 70 |
| MA | $106,060 | $100,287 | 600 |
| TX | $105,370 | $108,565 | 1,250 |

29 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 44 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthoptist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/orthoptist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 39,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 41,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,200 jobs, or +5.5%. Faster than average: 5.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,900 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:** 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:** None.

## What the work involves

- Evaluate, diagnose, or treat disorders of the visual system with an emphasis on binocular vision or abnormal eye movements.
- Examine patients with problems related to ocular motility, binocular vision, amblyopia, or strabismus.
- Perform diagnostic tests or measurements, such as motor testing, visual acuity testing, lensometry, retinoscopy, and color vision testing.
- Provide nonsurgical interventions, including corrective lenses, patches, drops, fusion exercises, or stereograms, to treat conditions such as strabismus, heterophoria, and convergence insufficiency.
- Develop nonsurgical treatment plans for patients with conditions such as strabismus, nystagmus, and other visual disorders.
- Provide instructions to patients or family members concerning diagnoses or treatment plans.
- Develop or use special test and communication techniques to facilitate diagnosis and treatment of children or patients with disabilities.
- Prepare diagnostic or treatment reports for other medical practitioners or therapists.

## 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — 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
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive 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), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 5.74 |
| R — Realistic | 4.88 |
| S — Social | 4.77 |
| C — Conventional | 3.82 |
| A — Artistic | 1.88 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.47 |

### 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 | 71.7 |
| ISFJ | 69.4 |
| ISTP | 65.9 |
| INTJ | 63.8 |
| ISFP | 62.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) — median $300,080
- [Optometrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/optometrist) — median $136,570
- [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) — median $335,550
- [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-physician) — median $265,930
- [Neurologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurologist) — median $248,560
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Allergist and Immunologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/allergist-and-immunologist) — median $265,930
- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Physician Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physician-assistant) — median $135,880

## 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/orthoptist