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Pay · 51-9083

Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians earn $39,460 a year at the midpoint

Pay is unusually even: nine in ten people earn between $33,530 and $57,380, around a midpoint of $39,460.

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$39,460median a year · United States
$18.97an hour $43,190average 18,660people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$36,47025th $39,460median $47,01075th
$33,53010th percentile $57,38090th percentile
$36,470a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$62,410best-paying state · Connecticut
$33,910lowest-paying state · Iowa
+58%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • The annual figure is arithmetic. For hourly occupations the annual figure is the hourly rate times 2080 hours. It is a calculation, not observed earnings: part time is the norm in retail and food service.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

A short climbThe 25th percentile, $36,470, is within 8% of the median.
State matters a lotThe same job pays $62,410 in Connecticut and $33,910 in Iowa — a gap of $28,500 a year.

Ophthalmic laboratory technician earnings, from starting pay to the highest 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

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An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Related work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians$39,460
Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders$58,040+$18,580 Tire Builders$57,390+$17,930 Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers$52,540+$13,080 Semiconductor Processing Technicians$51,430+$11,970 Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders$50,270+$10,810 Dental Laboratory Technicians$49,610+$10,150

Place 699 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 11% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 697 Helpers--Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Workers $39,630
  2. 698 Textile Knitting and Weaving Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders $39,530
  3. 699 Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians $39,460
  4. 700 Merchandise Displayers and Window Trimmers $39,390
  5. 701 Demonstrators and Product Promoters $39,320

Ophthalmic laboratory technician wages in each state

The 38 states where the most people do this work, of 40 with a published figure: their medians range by 1.84 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Connecticut $62,410 $49,400 $49,400 — $130,460 170
New Hampshire $59,460 $38,170 $38,170 — $80,370 180
Washington $49,230 $42,240 $42,240 — $59,490 260
Colorado $48,540 $42,940 $42,940 — $63,610 320
Rhode Island $47,440 $36,490 $36,490 — $60,360 70
New Jersey $47,420 $35,800 $35,800 — $48,400 —
California $47,410 $38,230 $38,230 — $79,960 1,630
Maryland $47,100 $33,590 $33,590 — $60,410 360
Ohio $46,320 $37,180 $37,180 — $48,480 560
Oregon $45,780 $38,650 $38,650 — $58,630 250
Michigan $45,490 $36,620 $36,620 — $49,380 330
Georgia $45,050 $35,300 $35,300 — $53,330 960
Kansas $44,920 $37,960 $37,960 — $45,990 —
North Carolina $44,140 $33,890 $33,890 — $57,630 210
Maine $43,520 $32,750 $32,750 — $61,270 50
Wisconsin $42,920 $32,900 $32,900 — $48,690 200
New York $42,450 $35,170 $35,170 — $49,370 1,250
Nebraska $40,640 $36,370 $36,370 — $50,250 170
Minnesota $40,280 $34,020 $34,020 — $49,570 1,110
Nevada $38,990 $34,030 $34,030 — $49,230 240
Missouri $38,740 $30,690 $30,690 — $49,450 360
Arizona $38,620 $34,490 $34,490 — $51,890 150
New Mexico $38,590 $31,010 $31,010 — $58,240 130
Florida $38,020 $33,580 $33,580 — $51,160 1,230
Texas $37,920 $30,710 $30,710 — $46,220 3,380
Pennsylvania $37,680 $30,160 $30,160 — $49,750 510
Tennessee $37,370 $33,880 $33,880 — $51,750 130
Indiana $37,360 $34,200 $34,200 — $58,050 330
Louisiana $37,160 $30,880 $30,880 — $45,530 300
Arkansas $37,060 $31,290 $31,290 — $44,990 170
Alabama $37,010 $26,760 $26,760 — $43,620 190
Illinois $36,840 $35,300 $35,300 — $47,990 830
Kentucky $36,650 $28,860 $28,860 — $47,150 610
Oklahoma $35,620 $29,830 $29,830 — $50,420 210
Mississippi $35,230 $27,460 $27,460 — $46,110 220
Virginia $34,170 $30,670 $30,670 — $55,860 470
South Carolina $34,140 $24,870 $24,870 — $68,910 130
Iowa $33,910 $30,360 $30,360 — $52,690 100

No estimate is published for 1 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Examples

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Ophthalmic laboratory technician pay rate, hourly to annual

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$39,458a year

Resumes for ophthalmic laboratory technicians

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

Microsoft ExcelSAP softwareMicrosoft Office softwareMicrosoft WordMicrosoft OutlookMicrosoft PowerPointEyeglass design softwareElectronic medical record EMR software
  • Mounted and secured lens blanks or optical lenses in holding tools or chucks of cutting, polishing, grinding, or coating machines.
  • Inspected lens blanks to detect flaws, verify smoothness of surface, and ensure thickness of coating on lenses.
  • Set up machines to polish, bevel, edge, or grind lenses, flats, blanks, or other precision optical elements.

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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The owner of tiersi.com has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Questions people often ask

What is an ophthalmic laboratory technician’s yearly income?

An ophthalmic laboratory technician makes a median of $39,460 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $36,470 and $47,010.

What is an ophthalmic laboratory technician’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $18.97 an hour; the average is $43,190 a year.

What is the starting pay for an ophthalmic laboratory technician?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $36,470 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $33,530.

Which state pays ophthalmic laboratory technicians the most?

Connecticut, with a median of $62,410 a year.

How many people work as ophthalmic laboratory technicians?

About 18,660 in the United States — number 699 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Work that pays nearly the same

Median pay within $300 of what ophthalmic laboratory technicians earn — $39,460 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations