Veterinarian Salary in Oklahoma

Oklahoma's median annual wage for veterinarians, $98,090, sits $32,010 below the national median of $130,100 — a gap of about 25%.

The hourly figures tell the same story: $47.16 against a national hourly median of $62.55, also about 25% lower.

That gap is not constant across the distribution.

At the 10th percentile Oklahoma trails the national figure by 30%, and by 29% at the 25th, but the gap narrows to 22% at the 75th percentile and to just 4% at the 90th, where Oklahoma's $208,000 sits close behind the national $215,700.

For someone weighing an Oklahoma offer against national salary figures, that difference matters: an offer near the state median should be read against a national figure that runs about 25% higher, while an offer near the top of the Oklahoma range is close to what the national top pays too.

The middle half of Oklahoma veterinarians — those between the 25th and 75th percentiles — earned between $71,560 and $129,300, a band $57,740 wide.

The national band over the same middle half is $64,660 wide, so the Oklahoma middle is somewhat tighter.

Within that band, the median sits closer to the floor than to the ceiling: $98,090 is $26,530 above the 25th percentile but $31,210 below the 75th.

The full range tells a different story: from the 10th percentile at $51,710 to the 90th at $208,000, Oklahoma spans $156,290, wider than the national span of $141,780.

That combination — a compressed middle sitting well below the national one, alongside a top that reaches nearly as high as the national top — means the Oklahoma distribution is not simply lower than the national one across the board; it covers a wider range before it reaches its higher earners.

OEWS publishes the distribution only, not why it takes this shape, so this page reads the numbers and stops there.

BLS counted 1,150 veterinarians employed in Oklahoma in the May 2025 estimates, a workforce that ranks 26th by employment among the 49 jurisdictions that publish a veterinarian median — well above the state's 47th-place rank by wage.

OEWS publishes the two figures independently, with no explanation of why they diverge, so this page states both ranks side by side and stops there.

The employment figure counts people working in the occupation during the survey period.

It is not a count of open positions, and it says nothing about how many jobs are open or how long any one search takes, so read it only as the size of the profession in the state.

Practicing veterinary medicine in Oklahoma takes a license from the OK State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners.

The route runs through both the NAVLE and Oklahoma's own State Jurisprudence Examination, with an alternate path for an applicant who already holds a license elsewhere: 5,000 hours of clinical practice across the five years before applying, a license from another jurisdiction, and a passed jurisprudence exam in place of the national exam.

Licenses renew every year, with 20 hours of continuing education required before each renewal.

Those steps apply the same way wherever a job sits in the wage distribution above; the full Oklahoma license requirements page covers each one with its citation.