Occupational Therapist Salary

What Is the Average Occupational Therapist Salary?

If you’re interested in helping people, and are looking at occupational therapy or pediatric occupational therapy as a means to achieve that, then you might, among other things, be wondering what the average occupational therapist salary is. After all, helping people is nice, professionals and noble, but you also want to have a career that will give you the lifestyle you want.
Here are a few facts and figures about the average occupational therapist salary, positions and the employment at various stages of your career, to help you decide whether this is the career path for you.

Average Starting Salary
The good news is that as a brand new occupational therapist, salary expectations are relatively high. You can expect to be offered between around $46 000 and $58 500, depending on where you choose to work. With less than one year experience, and the ink barely dry on your degree, that’s not bad going!

Mid Level Occupational Therapist Salary Expectations 
By the time you have reached five to ten years into your career, you will have wanted to gain significantly on your salary. At this stage of the average career as an occupational therapist, annual salary median expectations are between $53 000 and $67 500. That’s quite a jump in a few short years; so again, this career offers favorable potential for increases in earnings over the years.

Occupational Therapist Salary Expectations between Ten and Twenty Years
When it comes to occupational therapist salary scales, the compensation is where the real crunch comes – and where your skill, education, certification and experience, as well as your career choices, will tell.
Salaries at this level range from around $51 000 to more than $72 000, which is quite a large gap between the lower level earners and the upper. All the more reason, if you do choose this career path, to make sure that you are the best you can be.

Twenty Years and More, and Self Employed
By the time you have reached this level of career as an occupational therapist, salary expectations narrow once more, with the lower end of the scale being around $55 000, and the upper at around $72 000.
However, after several years in the healthcare industry, many occupational therapists opt for the private services practice route. As with many self employed people, those who choose this path will be able to determine their own earnings, within reason, by setting their fees and working hours according to their earnings expectations, although it’s not unheard of to earn more than $100 000 in this role.

Conclusion 
Of course, when you are deciding to become an certified occupational therapist, salary is only one of the considerations. You will need to have people skills, an aptitude for helping people, and the ability to master the skills required to excel at your degree. However, it is clear that occupational therapy as a career choice offers reasonable earning potential, and as with many things, what you get out of your job, occupational therapy or otherwise, is closely tied to what you put in. So excel, and you should prosper!