Pharmacy Technicians

Moderate Risk
Low High

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.2/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

58% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): This occupation may be meaningfully affected by automation. Some parts of the role may be suitable for AI, software, or robotics, while others still rely on human skill, judgement, trust, or real-world context. People in this range may benefit from building skills that complement automation and reduce replacement risk.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
Jobs that also use this strength

Working directly with the public

Quite important
Why this matters
The job involves face-to-face interaction with customers, clients, or guests—answering questions, handling requests, and managing service situations in real time. Roles with frequent public interaction are harder to replace end-to-end because they rely on trust, communication, and adapting to unpredictable human needs.
Jobs that also use this strength

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Decision-making and problem solving

Quite important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Show 1 more strength

Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 295 votes

66% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted that it's probable this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 58% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Pharmacy Technicians will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Very low paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Pharmacy Technicians was $43,460 ($21 per hour).

The median annual wage for Pharmacy Technicians was 12.2% lower than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Very fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Pharmacy Technicians' job openings is expected to rise 6.4% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Significantly greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 487,920 people employed as 'Pharmacy Technicians' within the United States.

This represents around 0.32% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 316 people are employed as 'Pharmacy Technicians'.

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What people are saying (11)

Leave a comment
Joshua Scott (Highly likely)
12 Mar 2026 13:16
I'm a pharmacy technician and the requirements that need supervision and double checking could be eliminated with automation. Calls, fillings, labels, etc can all be effectively done by automation possibly better
Dawn Elizabeth Rodriguez (Highly likely)
23 Jun 2025 00:33
I work in healthcare. Anything that can be automated, will be. There's already automatic dispensing systems. AI just made medication robots and mobile dispensing units possible.
AB (Highly likely)
23 Oct 2024 19:19
Based on a retail pharmacy in which I work, we already use a variety of robots and technology to count prescriptions, determine which tablet/capsule is being counted, and find contraindications. Besides patient and prescriber contact, it is very likely that AI could take this position.
Eric (Low)
10 Jul 2023 14:42
I am a Chemotherapy pharmacy technician in a hospital. There are certain compounds that will always require a human to hand make and deliver.
Anonymous (Highly likely)
11 Jan 2023 08:41
This is because the professional training of pharmacy technicians is already getting automated by existing technology in pharmacies, and this trend will continue to grow.

One other thing is that their medical training is something that can get replaced not only by future technology but also by pharmacists. This will result in this job becoming obsolete within the next few decades.
RxAndroid
24 Apr 2021 16:29
Techs are already being replaced by automation dispensing units. I don't think there will be a 100% replacement but rather a change in role of technicians in being able to manage machinery and like others have mentioned, handle situations that can not be planned out. You can either embrace and adapt to technology/change or get replaced by A.I...I sure as hell know that I'll be the one who continues to manage automation dispensing machines. Legislation is the other hurdle to overcome with regards to pharmacist oversight of automation (state laws will dictate over federal)
Hospital Employee (Uncertain)
12 Apr 2021 22:17
Yes, but you also need technicians to maintain the robots, make deliveries (hospitals), answer phone calls, help customers, billing, medical etc. Thankfully I am an “Automation Specialist” for hospital pharmacy. Pyxis doesn’t take care of itself that’s for sure!
J Burrows (No chance)
02 Feb 2020 19:32
There are some aspects of the role that can be completely automated but there are others that cannot. For example, as registered professionals in the course of their duties, technicians will encounter situations that cannot be planned for. They have a responsibility to draw upon their knowledge and experience to make a professional judgement that considers the best outcome for their patient(s) and upholds the safety and well being of patients, staff and public society. In some circumstances, this may lead to a decision to contravene normal procedure or regulations if there is reasonably defensible justification. In addition, where automation can be implemented, these processes would still require human supervision by someone with specialist pharmacy training and technicians are best placed to do this. Whilst job numbers may be reduced by automation, the role will not become totally redundant anytime soon.
Alice (Moderate)
22 Dec 2019 14:23
Techs are likely to be replaced in my opinion. We can say that pharmacists don't like doing tech work, but their feelings really don't matter in this job market. Qualified Pharmacists are struggling to find jobs right now. And with so many pharmacy schools opening, the competition is going to become stiffer and stiffer. Also low level clerical work (like monitoring diversion of controlled substances) is already highly likely to be automated.
pharmtekken
17 Aug 2019 10:28
For the regular pharmacy tech I can see automation on the Horizon, but one thing remains certain Pharmacists will always only want to do "pharmacist work" and not want to do "tech work" thats not what they went to school for. Pharmacists enjoy the luxury of not being frontline when dealing with customers i.e. ringing them out at the register, answering non clinical questions at the pharmacy or over the phone. What I would advise the SMART pharmacy technician to do is to get out of retail. There are call centers and hospitals which I feel automation of tech duties would be hard to replace
Cooper (Uncertain)
04 Jun 2019 19:08
Some techs have other duties, like monitoring diversion by hospital personnel of controlled substances.
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Job description

Prepare medications under the direction of a pharmacist. May measure, mix, count out, label, and record amounts and dosages of medications according to prescription orders.

O*NET-SOC code: 29-2052.00