---
title: "Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker"
description: "Feed, water, and examine pets and other nonfarm animals for signs of illness, disease, or injury in laboratories and animal hospitals and clinics. Clean…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-assistant-and-laboratory-animal-caretaker"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker

**Category:** Healthcare Support · **SOC code:** 31-9096 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 31-9096.00

Feed, water, and examine pets and other nonfarm animals for signs of illness, disease, or injury in laboratories and animal hospitals and clinics. Clean and disinfect cages and work areas, and sterilize laboratory and surgical equipment. May provide routine postoperative care, administer medication orally or topically, or prepare samples for laboratory examination under the supervision of veterinary or laboratory animal technologists or technicians, veterinarians, or scientists.

Also advertised as: Animal Care Provider; Animal Caregiver; Avian Keeper; Certified Veterinary Assistant; Emergency Veterinary Assistant; Inpatient Technician Assistant; Kennel Vet Assistant (Kennel Veterinary Assistant); Research Animal Attendant.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $38,150 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $18.34/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $30,120 to $49,150, with the middle half between $35,660 and $45,710
- **Total US employment:** 126,580
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +8.7% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 22,200 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 58/100 — 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 126,580 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $30,120 |
| 25th | $35,660 |
| 50th (median) | $38,150 |
| 75th | $45,710 |
| 90th | $49,150 |
| Mean (average) | $40,340 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| RI | $49,770 | $48,661 | 380 |
| DC | $49,080 | $44,658 | 240 |
| MA | $46,670 | $44,129 | 2,130 |
| CA | $46,260 | $41,781 | 16,080 |
| NJ | $46,160 | $42,425 | 3,270 |
| ME | $45,510 | $46,893 | 690 |
| MN | $45,280 | $45,913 | 1,450 |
| MD | $44,770 | $42,655 | 2,220 |
| NY | $44,750 | $41,466 | 5,790 |
| OR | $44,370 | $42,927 | 3,170 |
| CT | $44,250 | $42,708 | 1,390 |
| WA | $44,150 | $41,257 | 4,380 |
| HI | $44,070 | $40,081 | 570 |
| CO | $38,900 | $37,748 | 2,910 |
| DE | $38,610 | $38,684 | Not published by BLS |

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

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 117,800 in the 2024–2034 base year to 128,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 10,300 jobs, or +8.7%. Much faster than average: 8.7% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 22,200 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:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 78.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 10.9% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 6.4% |
| Some College Courses | 3.7% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 0.5% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 0.3% |

## What the work involves

- Hold or restrain animals during veterinary procedures.
- Clean and maintain kennels, animal holding areas, examination or operating rooms, or animal loading or unloading facilities to control the spread of disease.
- Assist veterinarians in examining animals to determine the nature of illnesses or injuries.
- Provide assistance with euthanasia of animals or disposal of corpses.
- Provide emergency first aid to sick or injured animals.
- Perform routine laboratory tests or diagnostic tests, such as taking or developing x-rays.
- Prepare examination or treatment rooms by stocking them with appropriate supplies.
- Collect laboratory specimens, such as blood, urine, or feces, for testing.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.8 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.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Material Resources — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Biology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.1 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 Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.33 |
| I — Investigative | 4.25 |
| C — Conventional | 3.96 |
| S — Social | 3.51 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.00 |

### 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 | 83.2 |
| ISFJ | 75.7 |
| ISTP | 74.5 |
| ESTJ | 64.4 |
| INTJ | 63.3 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Veterinary Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-technician) — median $47,380
- [Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-caretaker) — median $35,360
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690
- [Paramedic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paramedic) — median $60,600
- [Surgical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/surgical-assistant) — median $66,800
- [Emergency Medical Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medical-technician) — median $44,470
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Phlebotomist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/phlebotomist) — median $45,230
- [Licensed Practical Nurse](https://nuecareer.com/careers/licensed-practical-nurse) — median $64,400
- [Home Health Aide](https://nuecareer.com/careers/home-health-aide) — median $35,800

### Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker compared with

- [Vet Tech vs Vet Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/vet-tech-vs-vet-assistant) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements

## 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

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