---
title: "Psychiatrist"
description: "Diagnose, treat, and help prevent mental disorders."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatrist"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Psychiatrist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-1223 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-1223.00

Diagnose, treat, and help prevent mental disorders.

Also advertised as: Adult Psychiatrist; Child Psychiatrist; Consulting Psychiatrist; Medical Doctor (MD); Outpatient Psychiatrist; Prison Psychiatrist; Psychiatrist; Staff Psychiatrist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $281,870 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $135.51/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $84,060 to $446,520, with the middle half between $154,150 and $362,740
- **Total US employment:** 27,980
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — 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 27,980 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $84,060 |
| 25th | $154,150 |
| 50th (median) | $281,870 |
| 75th | $362,740 |
| 90th | $446,520 |
| Mean (average) | $269,940 |

### 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 | $353,500 | $319,274 | 5,420 |
| LA | $345,040 | $391,171 | 90 |
| AK | $342,170 | $334,284 | 50 |
| MN | $336,410 | $341,114 | 580 |
| WI | $331,070 | $351,847 | 550 |
| CT | $326,670 | $315,288 | 560 |
| FL | $316,200 | $305,761 | 1,930 |
| OR | $314,880 | $304,641 | 430 |
| MO | $312,680 | $344,297 | 240 |
| MD | $305,320 | $290,895 | 460 |
| WA | $304,920 | $284,937 | 360 |
| VT | $302,770 | $309,081 | 80 |
| ME | $300,180 | $309,304 | 80 |
| UT | $299,670 | $303,113 | 260 |
| IA | $295,270 | $336,444 | 170 |

31 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 46 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatrist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/psychiatrist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 27,100 in the 2024–2034 base year to 28,800 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,700 jobs, or +6.1%. Faster than average: 6.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 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:** 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 | 58.5% |
| Doctoral Degree | 34.2% |
| Master's Degree | 5.0% |
| First Professional Degree | 1.8% |
| High School Diploma | 0.5% |

## What the work involves

- Prescribe, direct, or administer psychotherapeutic treatments or medications to treat mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders.
- Collaborate with physicians, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, or other professionals to discuss treatment plans and progress.
- Teach, take continuing education classes, attend conferences or seminars, or conduct research and publish findings to increase understanding of mental, emotional, or behavioral states or disorders.
- Gather and maintain patient information and records, including social or medical history obtained from patients, relatives, or other professionals.
- Design individualized care plans, using a variety of treatments.
- Advise or inform guardians, relatives, or significant others of patients' conditions or treatment.
- Examine or conduct laboratory or diagnostic tests on patients to provide information on general physical condition or mental disorder.
- Analyze and evaluate patient data or test findings to diagnose nature or extent of mental disorder.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.9 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.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — 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 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Therapy and Counseling — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 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), Social (S), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.59 |
| S — Social | 5.83 |
| C — Conventional | 3.60 |
| A — Artistic | 2.65 |
| R — Realistic | 2.30 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.95 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| INFJ | 67.6 |
| INFP | 61.8 |
| INTJ | 56.1 |
| ISFP | 55.8 |
| ENFJ | 55.0 |

Best-fitting types: INFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Pediatrician, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatrician-general) — median $210,040
- [Neurologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurologist) — median $248,560
- [Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advanced-practice-psychiatric-nurse) — median $97,550
- [Family Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/family-medicine-physician) — median $244,180
- [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) — median $256,560
- [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) — median $559,030
- [Clinical Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-neuropsychologist) — median $110,840
- [Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neuropsychologist) — median $110,840
- [Clinical Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-psychologist) — median $100,580
- [Clinical Nurse Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-nurse-specialist) — 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/psychiatrist