---
title: "Phlebotomist"
description: "Draw blood for tests, transfusions, donations, or research. May explain the procedure to patients and assist in the recovery of patients with adverse…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/phlebotomist"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Phlebotomist

**Category:** Healthcare Support · **SOC code:** 31-9097 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 31-9097.00

Draw blood for tests, transfusions, donations, or research. May explain the procedure to patients and assist in the recovery of patients with adverse reactions.

Also advertised as: Lab Liaison Technician; Mobile Examiner; Patient Service Technician (PST); Phlebotomist; Phlebotomy Technician; Registered Phlebotomist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $45,230 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.75/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,780 to $58,780, with the middle half between $38,190 and $48,930
- **Total US employment:** 143,540
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.6% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 18,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 50/100 — 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 143,540 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,780 |
| 25th | $38,190 |
| 50th (median) | $45,230 |
| 75th | $48,930 |
| 90th | $58,780 |
| Mean (average) | $45,520 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $56,040 | $50,614 | 13,520 |
| DC | $51,980 | $47,297 | 180 |
| NY | $50,530 | $46,821 | 6,400 |
| MA | $50,170 | $47,439 | 2,580 |
| OR | $49,160 | $47,561 | 1,800 |
| WA | $48,880 | $45,677 | 2,820 |
| NH | $48,660 | $46,714 | 630 |
| NJ | $48,650 | $44,713 | 5,230 |
| DE | $48,110 | $48,203 | 430 |
| HI | $47,750 | $43,428 | 110 |
| ND | $47,430 | $53,317 | 220 |
| CO | $47,180 | $45,783 | 2,420 |
| WI | $46,470 | $49,386 | 3,610 |
| RI | $46,380 | $45,346 | 970 |
| VA | $46,340 | $45,834 | 3,600 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/phlebotomist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/phlebotomist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 139,700 in the 2024–2034 base year to 147,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 7,900 jobs, or +5.6%. Faster than average: 5.6% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 18,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 45.5% |
| High School Diploma | 31.8% |
| Some College Courses | 13.6% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 4.6% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 4.6% |

## What the work involves

- Dispose of contaminated sharps, in accordance with applicable laws, standards, and policies.
- Organize or clean blood-drawing trays, ensuring that all instruments are sterile and all needles, syringes, or related items are of first-time use.
- Draw blood from veins by vacuum tube, syringe, or butterfly venipuncture methods.
- Match laboratory requisition forms to specimen tubes.
- Dispose of blood or other biohazard fluids or tissue, in accordance with applicable laws, standards, or policies.
- Collect specimens at specific time intervals for tests, such as those assessing therapeutic drug levels.
- Train other medical personnel in phlebotomy or laboratory techniques.
- Conduct standards tests, such as blood alcohol, blood culture, oral glucose tolerance, glucose screening, blood smears, or peak and trough drug levels tests.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 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.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.6 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
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.5 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), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.44 |
| C — Conventional | 5.42 |
| I — Investigative | 4.69 |
| S — Social | 3.60 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.40 |
| A — Artistic | 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 | 89.1 |
| ISFJ | 80.7 |
| ESTJ | 71.9 |
| ISTP | 70.7 |
| INTJ | 66.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-clinical-laboratory-technician) — median $62,930
- [Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-clinical-laboratory-technologist) — median $62,930
- [Cardiovascular Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiovascular-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,310
- [Histotechnologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histotechnologist) — median $62,930
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Surgical Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-technologist) — median $64,650
- [Surgical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-assistant) — median $66,800
- [Emergency Medical Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician) — median $44,470
- [Histology Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/histology-technician) — median $62,930

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 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, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 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 30.3 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/phlebotomist