Veterinarian Statistics 2026: Job Market, Pay, Demand & Workforce

VeterinaryHires had 4,735 open veterinarian listings from 1,004 employers on October 13, 2026.

203 were first posted in the previous 14 days and 794 in the previous 30 days.

The benefit veterinarian listings named most often on October 13, 2026 was dental or vision coverage, in 83.1% of listings, followed by health insurance (77%).

A listing that does not mention a benefit may still offer it.

To browse the openings themselves, see all veterinarian listings.

The median annual wage for veterinarians was $130,100 in May 2025, and the middle half earned $101,460 to $166,120 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1131, May 2025).

Employers hiring veterinarians on VeterinaryHires advertise a median of $135,000 a year across 608 employers on October 13, 2026; this is advertised pay, not earnings.

For pay by state, percentile and experience, see the veterinarian salary guide, and for the full distribution of posted pay see our quarterly veterinarian pay data release.

California had the most open veterinarian listings on October 13, 2026, with 587 (12.4% of the national total).

Texas followed with 451 (9.5%).

To browse the openings in one state, start with veterinarian openings in California.

1,004 employers had open veterinarian listings on VeterinaryHires on October 13, 2026, and the five largest posted 57.3% of them.

850 employers (84.7%) had exactly one open veterinarian listing.

The largest single employer, Banfield Pet Hospital, posted 30.3% of all veterinarian listings, so this sample leans toward large multi-location employers.

The AVMA estimates there were 133,475 veterinarians in the United States as of December 31, 2025, 68.8% of them women (AVMA, 2025).

Of the 105,132 U.S. veterinarians with employment information, 75,136 (71.5%) worked in companion-animal practice, 5,909 in mixed practice, 4,144 in equine and 3,285 in food-animal practice (AVMA, 2025).

BLS projects employment of veterinarians to grow 9.4% from 2025 to 2035, about 3,100 openings a year, against 3.5% for all occupations (BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35).

BLS counted 83,900 veterinarian jobs in May 2025, a narrower measure than the AVMA count because it excludes the self-employed (BLS OEWS, May 2025).

Veterinary practices employed 75,160 veterinarians in May 2025, 15.9% of all jobs in the industry (BLS OEWS, NAICS 541940).

37 U.S. veterinary colleges hold AVMA Council on Education accreditation, 32 accredited and 5 provisionally (AVMA COE list, September 2026).

81.6% of seniors at accredited veterinary schools passed the NAVLE licensing exam on their first attempt in the 2024–25 testing cycle (ICVA, 2025).

For the three published veterinarian workforce forecasts, which disagree on whether there is a shortage, see the veterinary industry statistics hub.

For how to enter the field, see the veterinarian career guide.

Listing figures are computed from every active, paid veterinarian listing on VeterinaryHires at the time shown, and refreshed daily.

Listings on a job board are not a random sample of all veterinarian jobs, so read them as a picture of current hiring, not of total employment.

Advertised pay is the midpoint of the range an employer posts, or its single figure, and hourly and annual postings are never converted into each other.

The headline is the employer median: each employer’s own median, then the median across employers, so a group posting hundreds of openings counts once.

A pay figure needs at least 30 listings from 10 employers and is withheld when one employer posted more than half of them.

Federal and association figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the American Veterinary Medical Association and are quoted as published, with the year in each sentence.

General-practice veterinarian listings only; relief and emergency veterinarian listings are counted on their own pages.

Veterinarian listings on job boards come disproportionately from large hospital groups, which hire at scale and post every opening, so this sample over-represents corporate practice compared with the profession as a whole.