Occupational therapist salary by years of experience

A new graduate occupational therapist with no experience earns about $75,468 a year nationally. After one year that rises to $77,776, and by three years to $82,311. The first few years move quickly in percentage terms but from a low base: three years of experience is worth about $6,843 over a new graduate.

At five years a occupational therapist earns about $86,655, and at ten years about $96,337. Ten years of experience is worth roughly 28% over a new graduate, or $20,869 a year.

At fifteen years the figure is about $103,701 and at twenty years about $108,086. Growth slows sharply through this stretch: the decade from ten to twenty years adds $11,749, less than the decade from zero to ten, which adds $20,869.

By twenty-five years a occupational therapist earns about $109,149, and the curve is effectively flat from year 22 onward at roughly $108,898. Past that point additional years add almost nothing on their own. Setting, employment type and negotiation account for more of the spread between two occupational therapists at that stage than tenure does.

Ten years of experience is worth about $20,869 a year to a occupational therapist. The gap between the highest- and lowest-paying practice settings is $20,690: home health pays a median of $106,300 nationally while schools (k-12) pays $85,610 (BLS OEWS May 2025, national).

For a occupational therapist deciding where to put the next decade, that means the choice of setting is worth 1.0x what a decade of tenure is worth. Neither figure is a promise, and the two compound rather than compete, but the setting decision is the one that moves faster and is the one most often left unexamined.

BLS suppresses setting figures at metro level, so those are national. The salary comparison tool holds the full setting breakdown alongside community-reported pay, and weighs your setting and your years together.

Search for occupational therapist pay and the numbers will not agree, often by tens of thousands of dollars. That is not because one source is lying. They are measuring different things, and knowing which is which tells you what to trust for what.

Establishment surveys such as BLS OEWS ask employers what they actually pay the people on their payroll. It is the largest sample available and it excludes the self-employed. It is a measurement of wages paid.

Job-posting models infer pay from advertised ranges. They move with whatever is being hired for at the moment, which is why they can swing between refreshes and why they tend to describe openings rather than the profession.

Projected figures apply a growth rate to older data to produce a current-year number. That is a forecast presented as a measurement, and the label rarely says so.

Percentile relabelling presents the wage distribution as a career ladder, as described above. It produces plausible numbers attached to the wrong question.

The figures here are BLS OEWS May 2025 as published, not projected forward, with the experience dimension supplied by Census microdata rather than inferred from the distribution.