---
title: "Prosthodontist"
description: "Diagnose, treat, rehabilitate, design, and fit prostheses that maintain oral function, health, and appearance for patients with clinical conditions…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/prosthodontist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Prosthodontist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1024 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1024.00

Diagnose, treat, rehabilitate, design, and fit prostheses that maintain oral function, health, and appearance for patients with clinical conditions associated with teeth, oral and maxillofacial tissues, or the jaw.

Also advertised as: DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery); Dental Science Dr (Dental Science Doctor); Denturist; Maxillofacial Prosthodontist; Prosthetic Dentist; Prosthodontist; Reconstructive Dentist; Removable Prosthodontist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $311,180 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $149.61/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $103,510 to $344,750, with the middle half between $252,050 and $333,480
- **Total US employment:** 870
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 0 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 57/100 — 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 870 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $103,510 |
| 25th | $252,050 |
| 50th (median) | $311,180 |
| 75th | $333,480 |
| 90th | $344,750 |
| Mean (average) | $268,630 |

### Pay by state

OEWS publishes no state-level wage estimates for this occupation.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 100 jobs, or +5.8%. Faster than average: 5.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 0 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 | 61.0% |
| Doctoral Degree | 36.1% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.9% |

## What the work involves

- Examine patients to diagnose oral health conditions and diseases.
- Fit prostheses to patients, making any necessary adjustments and modifications.
- Measure and take impressions of patients' jaws and teeth to determine the shape and size of dental prostheses, using face bows, dental articulators, recording devices, and other materials.
- Collaborate with general dentists, specialists, and other health professionals to develop solutions to dental and oral health concerns.
- Repair, reline, or rebase dentures.
- Replace missing teeth and associated oral structures with permanent fixtures, such as implant-supported prostheses, crowns and bridges, or removable fixtures, such as dentures.
- Use bonding technology on the surface of the teeth to change tooth shape or to close gaps.
- Design and fabricate dental prostheses, or supervise dental technicians and laboratory bench workers who construct the devices.

## 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
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.0 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 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.17 |
| I — Investigative | 5.54 |
| S — Social | 4.59 |
| C — Conventional | 3.22 |
| A — Artistic | 1.78 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.43 |

### 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 | 71.8 |
| ISTP | 71.6 |
| ISFJ | 65.2 |
| ISFP | 64.2 |
| INTJ | 63.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oral-and-maxillofacial-surgeon) — median $352,220
- [Dentist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dentist) — median $170,950
- [Orthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist) — median $289,140
- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) — median $358,550
- [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) — median $328,730
- [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) — median $300,080
- [Dental Hygienist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dental-hygienist) — median $98,100
- [Podiatrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/podiatrist) — median $160,300
- [Urologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/urologist) — median $265,930

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/

---

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/prosthodontist