Health and care
What does a Respiratory Therapist do?
Looking after people directly, often when they are at their worst.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Tools, materials, your body.
- People all day.
- Right or wrong, to a standard.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $82,280 a year, median
- Respiratory Therapists, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Associate's degree
- Several years, and usually a formal qualification.
- Jobs
- +9% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing
What is good about it
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
- You can see what you did at the end of the day.
What people find hard about it
- Critically ill patients
- Night shifts
- Equipment alarms
Quiet, technical, and in demand; little known outside hospitals.
Will machines take this job?
Hard for machines to take over. Notes and scheduling are automating. Being in the room with a frightened person is not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Shadow a respiratory team, including an intensive care round.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.