---
title: "Psychiatric Technician"
description: "Care for individuals with mental or emotional conditions or disabilities, following the instructions of physicians or other health practitioners. Monitor…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-technician"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Psychiatric Technician

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2053 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2053.00

Care for individuals with mental or emotional conditions or disabilities, following the instructions of physicians or other health practitioners. Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report to medical staff. May participate in rehabilitation and treatment programs, help with personal hygiene, and administer oral or injectable medications.

Also advertised as: BHT (Behavioral Health Technician); Health Care Technician (Health Care Tech); LPT (Licensed Psychiatric Technician); Mental Health Associate; Mental Health Specialist; Mental Health Technician (MHT); MHA (Mental Health Assistant); MHW (Mental Health Worker).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $45,130 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $21.70/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,090 to $60,750, with the middle half between $38,430 and $50,160
- **Total US employment:** 156,960
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +20.0% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 15,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 48/100 — 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 156,960 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,090 |
| 25th | $38,430 |
| 50th (median) | $45,130 |
| 75th | $50,160 |
| 90th | $60,750 |
| Mean (average) | $46,610 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $67,430 | $61,355 | 380 |
| OR | $59,820 | $57,875 | 1,250 |
| NY | $58,080 | $53,817 | 2,040 |
| NE | $57,370 | $63,672 | 1,390 |
| CT | $55,500 | $53,566 | 1,040 |
| HI | $55,150 | $50,159 | 2,060 |
| NJ | $54,040 | $49,667 | 2,520 |
| WA | $52,470 | $49,031 | 1,920 |
| MA | $52,000 | $49,169 | 5,340 |
| AK | $51,650 | $50,460 | 340 |
| CA | $49,140 | $44,382 | 14,100 |
| RI | $48,520 | $47,438 | 990 |
| VA | $48,320 | $47,792 | 3,950 |
| VT | $47,560 | $48,551 | 600 |
| CO | $47,430 | $46,025 | 1,740 |

34 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 49 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/psychiatric-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 144,500 in the 2024–2034 base year to 173,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 28,900 jobs, or +20.0%. Much faster than average: 20.0% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 15,900 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:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Some College Courses | 40.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 29.8% |
| High School Diploma | 19.8% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 5.0% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 3.2% |
| Master's Degree | 2.1% |

## What the work involves

- Encourage patients to develop work skills and to participate in social, recreational, or other therapeutic activities that enhance interpersonal skills or develop social relationships.
- Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report unusual behavior or physical ailments to medical staff.
- Observe and influence patients' behavior, communicating and interacting with them and teaching, counseling, or befriending them.
- Develop or teach strategies to promote client wellness and independence.
- Train or instruct new employees on procedures to follow with psychiatric patients.
- Collaborate with or assist doctors, psychologists, or rehabilitation therapists in working with patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities to treat, rehabilitate, and return patients to the community.
- Aid patients in performing tasks, such as bathing or keeping beds, clothing, or living areas clean.
- Restrain violent, potentially violent, or suicidal patients by verbal or physical means as required.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Psychology — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- 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
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 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 Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.93 |
| I — Investigative | 4.57 |
| C — Conventional | 3.46 |
| R — Realistic | 3.29 |
| A — Artistic | 2.12 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.46 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 65.8 |
| ISFP | 63.4 |
| ESFJ | 60.8 |
| INFJ | 60.0 |
| ESFP | 58.2 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ISFP, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Psychiatric Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatric-aide) — median $44,910
- [Physical Therapist Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-assistant) — median $68,380
- [Occupational Therapy Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-aide) — median $39,160
- [Physical Therapist Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physical-therapist-aide) — median $35,240
- [Occupational Therapy Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-therapy-assistant) — median $72,300
- [Recreational Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/recreational-therapist) — median $61,960
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800
- [Acute Care Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/acute-care-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Registered Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/registered-nurse) — median $97,550

## 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/psychiatric-technician