---
title: "Sports Psychologist"
description: "A licensed psychologist who helps athletes improve performance and manage mental health issues such as anxiety, injury recovery, and burnout."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/sports-psychologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Sports Psychologist

**Category:** Life, Physical, and Social Science · **SOC code:** 19-3033 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 19-3033.00

A licensed psychologist who helps athletes improve performance and manage mental health issues such as anxiety, injury recovery, and burnout.

Also advertised as: Sport Psychologist; Sport and Performance Psychologist; Performance Psychologist; Clinical Sport Psychologist; Team Psychologist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $100,580 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $48.36/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $55,170 to $180,960, with the middle half between $73,210 and $135,200
- **Total US employment:** 75,990
- **Typical entry education:** Doctorate
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +11.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 33/100 — 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 75,990 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $55,170 |
| 25th | $73,210 |
| 50th (median) | $100,580 |
| 75th | $135,200 |
| 90th | $180,960 |
| Mean (average) | $112,750 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OR | $134,350 | $129,981 | 540 |
| NJ | $127,090 | $116,805 | 2,700 |
| NM | $124,800 | $135,340 | Not published by BLS |
| AK | $124,270 | $121,406 | 40 |
| AZ | $119,010 | $118,210 | 730 |
| HI | $117,860 | $107,193 | 250 |
| ND | $116,130 | $130,543 | 170 |
| CA | $116,000 | $104,769 | 12,840 |
| WA | $115,240 | $107,688 | 1,270 |
| MA | $115,180 | $108,910 | 2,860 |
| NY | $114,400 | $106,003 | 8,420 |
| WI | $113,360 | $120,474 | 1,150 |
| CO | $113,290 | $109,935 | 1,170 |
| DE | $113,050 | $113,267 | 280 |
| RI | $107,490 | $105,094 | 420 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 81,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 90,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 9,500 jobs, or +11.7%. Much faster than average: 11.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,100 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 | 48.0% |
| Doctoral Degree | 44.0% |
| Master's Degree | 8.0% |

## What the work involves

- Teach athletes mental skills such as focus, imagery, and routines
- Assess and treat anxiety, depression, and eating disorders in athletes
- Support athletes through injury, rehabilitation, and retirement
- Consult with coaches on team communication and culture
- Work with sports medicine staff on concussion and return to play
- Develop mental health programs for athletic departments
- Travel with teams to training camps and competitions
- Keep confidential clinical records and treatment plans

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.6 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 4.4 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
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Psychology — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 5.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sociology and Anthropology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive 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 Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.57 |
| I — Investigative | 5.70 |
| C — Conventional | 3.49 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.47 |
| A — Artistic | 3.06 |
| R — Realistic | 1.05 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 70.4 |
| INFJ | 66.6 |
| ENFP | 66.2 |
| INFP | 60.1 |
| ESFP | 56.6 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Clinical Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-psychologist) — median $100,580
- [Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-worker) — median $60,280
- [Marriage and Family Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marriage-and-family-therapist) — median $66,940
- [Mental Health Counselor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mental-health-counselor) — median $60,320
- [Psychiatrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatrist) — median $281,870
- [Healthcare Social Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/healthcare-social-worker) — median $67,880
- [School Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/school-psychologist) — median $95,990
- [Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neuropsychologist) — median $110,840
- [Clinical Neuropsychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/clinical-neuropsychologist) — median $110,840
- [Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advanced-practice-psychiatric-nurse) — median $97,550

## 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/
- **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/sports-psychologist