Average OT salary (2019)

We have calculated the average OT salary in 2019 to be $76,448.

This is our own calculation, and we based it on an average of multiple reputable sites’ findings, which we will discuss below.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start with what the average OT salary really is. I’m going to be including many sources in this article. That’s because each salary resource collects its data using its own methods. Each resource also looks at different factors. For example, some websites might break down salaries between states (or even cities), while others break them down per region or per experience level. Other sites focus more on experience level or other factors.

Keep in mind, as well, that each source has its own collection bias, based on who chooses to submit data, who uses the resource, and how the data itself is collected. And we have based our calculations on an average of all the data we found, some of which is presented as median vs. mean findings.

Median vs. mean OT salary

Before we dive into the data, I also want to note that “median salary” is different from “mean salary” (also known as “average salary”).

A median salary means that, when all the salaries are laid out from lowest to highest, there is usually a cluster where most salaries lie. At the center of that cluster lies the median—or middle—of that list of salaries. You might have some outliers that make a ton or very little, but they won’t skew the median.

The mean (average) literally takes all of the salaries, adds them up, then divides them by the total number of responses. That means that those outliers (meaning the very low, or very high, salaries) could very easily skew the mean. And this is important to consider, because there are quite a few OTs who only work part-time or PRN, and their annual salaries are lower for that reason alone, not because they’re making a terrible hourly wage.

With that out of the way, here are what various resources list as the average (or median, in some cases) salaries for OTs. I have listed sources in alphabetical order.

The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)

The AOTA is the professional organization for the OT field. AOTA runs its own salary survey and updates it every few years. The last year it did so was 2015.

According to the AOTA, the median annual pay for OTs in 2015 was $70,000.

However, the findings reveal that experience is a big factor in how much you can earn as an OT. For example, a brand-new OT with under a year of experience will make a median salary of $59,000. An experienced OT with six to nine years of experience will make a median salary of $69,000. And an OT with 25+ years of experience will earn a median salary of $80,000.