Veterinary medicine employs far more people than veterinarians.
Hospitals and clinics also run on credentialed veterinary technicians, veterinary assistants, receptionists, kennel attendants and practice managers, while DVMs work as associates, ER and relief vets, specialists, and in industry, government and academia.
This page maps every major role in the field: what each does, the education or credential it needs, and the May 2025 median pay where the federal data has one, so you can pick the rung to start on.
Jobs that need a DVM
What the jobs in this section share is the credential: BLS says veterinarians must have a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) or VMD degree from an accredited veterinary college plus a state license.
The veterinary medicine program generally takes 4 years of classroom, laboratory and clinical work, and applicants typically arrive with a bachelor's degree already in hand.
If you want the job itself rather than the list around it, start with what a veterinarian does.
The short version of where DVM jobs sit: AVMA's 2024 Census found 70.9% of veterinarians in companion animal practice, 6.2% at colleges or universities, 4.5% in mixed animal practice, 3.4% equine, 3.2% industry/commercial, 1.3% food animal, 1.3% federal government, 1.0% state and local government, 0.4% uniformed services, and 7.9% in other work.
Within private practice, the 2024 Census found 57.4% worked as associates, 23.8% as practice owners, 9.1% as relief or contract veterinarians and 7.1% as hospital or medical directors.
Relief work is a job category of its own in that count.
Compare GP vs emergency practice on pay and pace, see how relief veterinary work is structured, or browse emergency veterinarian and relief veterinarian openings.
The scale behind the list: BLS counted 91,100 veterinarian jobs in 2025, projected to reach 99,600 by 2035 — 9% growth against a 3% average for all occupations, with 3,100 openings a year.
AVMA separately estimated 127,131 veterinarians actively engaged in private or public practice at the end of 2023 (BLS counts jobs; AVMA counts actively practicing veterinarians, which is why the numbers differ).
Beyond the clinic sit the board-certified specialists — 20,636 active diplomates of AVMA-recognized veterinary specialty organizations as of December 31, 2025, with some veterinarians holding more than one specialty — plus the public-sector, academic and industry work the census above counts separately.
Pay moves a lot by setting.
AVMA medians reported in 2024 for 2023: companion animal exclusive associates $133,000, relief/contract veterinarians $120,000, federal government $142,721 (from 28 respondents), colleges and universities $145,000, state and local government $105,000, and industry/commercial $190,000 — that last figure from only 69 respondents.
BLS industry medians for May 2025: social advocacy organizations $131,760, veterinary services $129,990, educational services $121,890, and government excluding state and local education and hospitals $115,210.
Two job counts, two sources
Jobs that need a credential (RVT/LVT/CVT, VTS)
The licensed clinical core between the DVM and the assistant is the veterinary technician.
BLS: veterinary technologists usually need a 4-year bachelor's degree and technicians a 2-year associate degree in veterinary technology, and most then pass a credentialing exam to become registered, licensed or certified — which of the three depends on the state.
BLS says most states require the exam, and each state regulates the role differently, which is why the same job is an RVT in one state and an LVT or CVT in the next; the credential-title explainer untangles the letters.
The occupation is large: 131,400 jobs in 2025, 89% of them in veterinary services, projected to grow 9% from 2025 to 2035 with 13,400 openings a year, at a May 2025 median of $47,380.
The veterinary technicians guide covers the role in full, and the technician salary page carries the state-by-state pay.
On top of the base credential sits the VTS — veterinary technician specialist.
NAVTA lists 11 fully recognized veterinary technician specialty academies and 5 more with provisional recognition, with emergency and critical care among them.
How to become a VTS covers the route and the payoff question.
Credential rules are state rules
Jobs you can start with no degree (assistant, CSR, kennel)
Three roles you can start without a degree: veterinary assistants, veterinary receptionists — postings usually say CSR, client service representative — and kennel attendants.
BLS's typical entry-level education is a high school diploma or equivalent for veterinary assistants, for receptionists, and for animal care and service workers, the family the kennel role sits in — and the BLS profile for assistants lists no related work experience, with short-term on-the-job training.
BLS says most animal care and service workers learn through on-the-job training, and most receptionists get short-term on-the-job training that usually lasts a few days up to a month; each guide covers what hiring teams actually screen for instead.
The federal data needs two labels before you compare pay.
The assistant figure covers a combined occupation — veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers together — at a May 2025 median of $38,150.
The receptionist figure is all-industry, not veterinary-specific, at $38,010.
Kennel attendants sit inside Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021), a series that also includes groomers, with a median of $35,360; the broader animal care and service group's 2025 median is $35,530.
These are the rungs you can apply for today, and they put you inside the building where the credentialed roles work.
The technician cluster keeps the full tech vs assistant comparison if you're weighing the two.
Management and admin jobs
Every hospital also has a business side to run.
The guide for practice managers covers the role — scheduling and staffing, client billing and payment, the practice information system — plus the related hospital-administrator title.
On pay, VeterinaryHires' research notes that BLS has no occupation for veterinary practice managers, and the closest BLS occupation (11-9111, medical and health services managers) is much broader — so the practice manager guide carries the pay discussion rather than a BLS number.
If you're a technician eyeing the desk, tech to practice manager maps that specific move.
Hospital-adjacent jobs (social worker, pharmacist, sales)
Around the hospital sit roles the field shares with other industries — three of them come up often enough to know by name.
Veterinary social workers support clients and veterinary staff through counseling, crisis intervention and resources for pet loss, animal-related trauma or difficult decisions, in the UT College of Social Work's description of the role.
Clinical social work requires a master's degree, supervised clinical experience and a state license.
The nearest federal pay series put healthcare social workers at $67,880 and social workers, all other, at $71,900 — general proxies, not veterinary-specific figures.
Pharmacy is the other licensed-adjacent track: the occupation's all-settings federal median is $140,910, and the series is not veterinary-specific.
Sales is the third — technical and scientific products sales representatives earned a May 2025 median of $104,920 across all industries, with the 10th percentile at $52,600 and the 90th at $200,440.
That is a proxy too, not an animal-health figure.
Veterinarians themselves also move into industry rather than leaving the field: AVMA put industry/commercial veterinarians' median professional income at $190,000, from that same small sample of 69 respondents.
Industry roles for veterinarians: pharma, diagnostics, distribution maps the path.
Pay and training time for each role
Here is the whole list in one table.
Every pay figure is a national median from the BLS OEWS May 2025 release unless labeled AVMA — a market shape, not a quote for your zip code.
| Role | Credential and training | Median pay (May 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Veterinarian (associate, ER, relief, specialist) | DVM or VMD from an accredited college plus a state license; a 4-year veterinary program, typically after a bachelor's | $130,100 (SOC 29-1131) |
| Veterinary technician (RVT/LVT/CVT) | 2-year associate degree (technician) or 4-year bachelor's (technologist), then a credentialing exam in most states | $47,380 (SOC 29-2056) |
| Veterinary assistant | BLS: most have a high school diploma or equivalent and learn on the job; counted together with laboratory animal caretakers in federal data | $38,150 (SOC 31-9096, combined) |
| Veterinary receptionist / CSR | Figure is all-industry receptionists, not veterinary-specific | $38,010 (SOC 43-4171, all industries) |
| Kennel attendant | High school diploma or equivalent typical for animal care and service workers; series also includes groomers | $35,360 (SOC 39-2021) |
| Practice manager | BLS has no occupation for the role — the closest BLS occupation (11-9111, medical and health services managers) is much broader | See the practice manager guide |
| Veterinary social worker | Clinical social work: master's degree, supervised clinical experience, state license | $67,880 (healthcare social workers, SOC 21-1022) |
| Pharmacist | Federal figure covers all settings, not veterinary-specific | $140,910 (SOC 29-1051) |
| Sales rep (technical and scientific products) | All-industry figure, a proxy — not animal-health-specific | $104,920 (SOC 41-4011) |
Read vertically, the spread is the story.
The veterinarian median of $130,100 — $62.55 an hour — runs from $73,920 at the 10th percentile to $215,700 at the 90th, while technicians span $35,710 to $63,180 around their $47,380 median.
For state-level detail, each role has its own salary page: veterinarian, technician, assistant, receptionist, kennel attendant and practice manager.
Read the label on each number
Browse open veterinary jobs by role
Counts change daily, so here is the shape of the market as of October 22, 2026, from VeterinaryHires' own listings: 13,218 live veterinary job openings, including 4,745 veterinarian, 3,503 technician, 2,429 assistant, 1,404 receptionist, 318 kennel attendant, 283 relief veterinarian, 271 practice manager and 265 emergency veterinarian openings.
- Veterinarian jobs
- Veterinary technician jobs
- Veterinary assistant jobs
- Veterinary receptionist jobs
- Kennel attendant jobs
- Practice manager jobs
- Emergency veterinarian jobs
- Relief veterinarian jobs
Each role's guide — linked throughout this page — covers requirements, pay mechanics and how to move up a rung, so start with the one closest to where you are now.