---
title: "Vascular Technologist"
description: "Uses ultrasound and other noninvasive tests to examine arteries and veins for blockages, clots, and aneurysms."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/vascular-technologist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Vascular Technologist

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2032 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2032.00

Uses ultrasound and other noninvasive tests to examine arteries and veins for blockages, clots, and aneurysms.

Also advertised as: Registered Vascular Technologist; RVT; Vascular Sonographer; Registered Vascular Specialist; Vascular Ultrasound Technologist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $96,590 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $46.44/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $67,820 to $129,370, with the middle half between $80,430 and $106,930
- **Total US employment:** 90,160
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +13.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 44/100 — 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 90,160 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $67,820 |
| 25th | $80,430 |
| 50th (median) | $96,590 |
| 75th | $106,930 |
| 90th | $129,370 |
| Mean (average) | $97,240 |

### 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 | $128,530 | $116,086 | 10,110 |
| HI | $124,430 | $113,169 | 210 |
| WA | $121,340 | $113,388 | 2,190 |
| OR | $120,220 | $116,311 | 1,210 |
| DC | $112,020 | $101,928 | 160 |
| CO | $108,410 | $105,199 | 1,430 |
| MA | $107,480 | $101,629 | 2,190 |
| AK | $105,670 | $103,235 | 140 |
| VT | $104,100 | $106,270 | 140 |
| NY | $103,920 | $96,293 | 6,880 |
| NH | $103,760 | $99,611 | 400 |
| CT | $103,230 | $99,633 | 990 |
| NJ | $103,150 | $94,803 | 3,370 |
| MN | $102,850 | $104,288 | 1,710 |
| WI | $102,090 | $108,497 | 1,530 |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 92,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 105,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 12,900 jobs, or +13.9%. Much faster than average: 13.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,000 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:** Associate's degree (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.

## What the work involves

- Perform duplex ultrasound of carotid, abdominal, and peripheral arteries
- Scan leg and arm veins to detect deep vein thrombosis and reflux
- Measure ankle-brachial indexes and segmental pressures
- Map veins before bypass surgery or dialysis access
- Record images, velocities, and waveforms for physician interpretation
- Write preliminary technical findings for each study
- Maintain ultrasound equipment and lab quality standards
- Explain procedures to patients and position them for scanning

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — 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
- Monitoring — 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 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — 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

### Knowledge areas

- Physics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 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), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.91 |
| I — Investigative | 4.95 |
| C — Conventional | 4.83 |
| S — Social | 4.31 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.51 |
| A — Artistic | 1.32 |

### 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 | 83.6 |
| ISFJ | 78.3 |
| ISTP | 70.0 |
| ESTJ | 66.7 |
| INTJ | 62.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Diagnostic Medical Sonographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/diagnostic-medical-sonographer) — median $96,590
- [Cardiovascular Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiovascular-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,310
- [Radiologic Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiologic-technologist-and-technician) — median $80,110
- [Neurodiagnostic Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurodiagnostic-technologist) — median $50,290
- [Radiation Therapist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiation-therapist) — median $105,310
- [Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/magnetic-resonance-imaging-technologist) — median $95,480
- [Ophthalmic Medical Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmic-medical-technologist) — median $50,290
- [Endoscopy Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/endoscopy-technician) — median $48,430
- [Surgical Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-technologist) — median $64,650
- [Nuclear Medicine Technologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nuclear-medicine-technologist) — median $101,370

## 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/vascular-technologist