Health and care
What does a Veterinary Technician 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
- $47,380 a year, median
- Veterinary Technologists and Technicians, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Associate's degree
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- 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
- Distressed owners
- Euthanasia
- Bites, scratches and lifting
People come for the animals and leave because of the owners and the pay.
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
Spend a day in a practice, ideally including an emergency.
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.