---
title: "Orthotist and Prosthetist"
description: "Design, measure, fit, and adapt orthopedic braces, appliances or prostheses, such as limbs or facial parts for patients with disabling conditions."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthotist-and-prosthetist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Orthotist and Prosthetist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2091 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2091.00

Design, measure, fit, and adapt orthopedic braces, appliances or prostheses, such as limbs or facial parts for patients with disabling conditions.

Also advertised as: Certified Orthotist (CO); Certified Pedorthist; Certified Prosthetist (CP); Certified Prosthetist Orthotist (CPO); Licensed Orthotist; LPO (Licensed Prosthetist Orthotist); Orthotic Practitioner; Orthotist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $81,110 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $38.99/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $46,350 to $119,810, with the middle half between $61,290 and $99,990
- **Total US employment:** 9,390
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +12.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 56/100 — 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 9,390 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $46,350 |
| 25th | $61,290 |
| 50th (median) | $81,110 |
| 75th | $99,990 |
| 90th | $119,810 |
| Mean (average) | $83,740 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NJ | $118,950 | $109,324 | 240 |
| WA | $105,240 | $98,343 | 250 |
| UT | $96,530 | $97,639 | 70 |
| MD | $95,030 | $90,540 | 90 |
| OR | $93,790 | $90,740 | 120 |
| RI | $93,350 | $91,269 | Not published by BLS |
| VA | $92,930 | $91,915 | 340 |
| CA | $91,820 | $82,930 | 1,050 |
| MA | $89,860 | $84,968 | 350 |
| WI | $89,710 | $95,340 | 140 |
| NY | $89,610 | $83,033 | 300 |
| IL | $89,180 | $89,217 | 240 |
| IA | $87,300 | $99,474 | 90 |
| OK | $83,780 | $95,375 | 80 |
| NC | $82,190 | $87,134 | 260 |

30 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 45 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthotist-and-prosthetist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/orthotist-and-prosthetist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 9,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 10,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,200 jobs, or +12.9%. Much faster than average: 12.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 700 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:** 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 | 90.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 5.0% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 5.0% |

## What the work involves

- Fit, test, and evaluate devices on patients, and make adjustments for proper fit, function, and comfort.
- Instruct patients in the use and care of orthoses and prostheses.
- Maintain patients' records.
- Examine, interview, and measure patients to determine their appliance needs and to identify factors that could affect appliance fit.
- Select materials and components to be used, based on device design.
- Repair, rebuild, and modify prosthetic and orthopedic appliances.
- Construct and fabricate appliances, or supervise others constructing the appliances.
- Make and modify plaster casts of areas to be fitted with prostheses or orthoses to guide the device construction process.

## 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
- Writing — 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
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — 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
- Service Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — 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
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- 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
- 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
- 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.00 |
| I — Investigative | 5.10 |
| S — Social | 4.30 |
| C — Conventional | 3.58 |
| A — Artistic | 1.99 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.56 |

### 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 | 76.0 |
| ISTP | 73.4 |
| ISFJ | 69.0 |
| ISFP | 64.7 |
| INTJ | 63.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Medical Appliance Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-appliance-technician) — median $48,030
- [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-physician) — median $265,930
- [Podiatrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/podiatrist) — median $160,300
- [Audiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/audiologist) — median $95,780
- [Orthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist) — median $289,140
- [Physical Therapist Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-assistant) — median $68,380
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Physical Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist) — median $102,760
- [Prosthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prosthodontist) — median $311,180

## 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/orthotist-and-prosthetist