Radiologic Technologists and Technicians

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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
5.6/10
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

43% (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

Very 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.
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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.
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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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Psychology knowledge

Quite important
Why this matters
Understanding human behavior, motivation, and individual differences to assess needs, respond appropriately, and support behavior change or mental health.
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Education and training expertise

Quite important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
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What users think

Based on 326 votes

40% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 43% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Radiologic Technologists and 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

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Radiologic Technologists and Technicians was $77,660 ($37 per hour).

The median annual wage for Radiologic Technologists and Technicians was 56.9% higher 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

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' job openings is expected to rise 4.3% 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

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 223,460 people employed as 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' within the United States.

This represents around 0.14% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 689 people are employed as 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians'.

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What people are saying (11)

Leave a comment
Scott Ellis (Low)
25 Jul 2025 19:58
Positioning and moving patients from beds to tables requires effort.
Will Smith (Low)
16 Apr 2025 17:13
AI is a tool and has no business taking over any sort of jobs. It's all capitalistic bull**** that will backfire when they try to replace people with AI to save money and everything in the company and economy go to shit.
Abdou abderrahman (Low)
25 Aug 2024 15:58
First you need to take care of patients and in accidents or having an elderly patient who doesn't know how to use technology The ai will not be suitable for job
Secondly we have kids and kids will be scared if a piece of metal tries to grab him so you need human interaction
Trevor
15 Jul 2024 07:07
The main issue is taking an x-ray or getting a scan that is not easy to get. A lot of imaging done (mainly in hospitals over outpatient) is not perfect. Patients can not always hold still, get into position, or their condition does not allow for the intended imaging. I believe that if only technologists voted on this they would all say there is little to no chance. The people voting is likely not made of all technologist. Personally I think there is a small chance that AI could take my job. One of the newer CT scanners I use can automatically scan the patient and recon the scans with almost no input by me. But actually scanning the patient is such a small percent of what actually happens. There would need to be a major breakthrough in imaging equipment or AI in order for this to be possible.
Brandon (Low)
01 Feb 2023 07:39
The meticulous work done by a radiological technician is extremely difficult to replace through artificial intelligence. The reason being, the contrast in faults that could be the cause of the same problem.

Fortunately, there are also too many different makes of machines. For one robot to be programmed to fault find and fix all makes of x-ray machines is going to take at least 40 years to develop, which won't be worth an engineer's effort based on its purpose.

This job will not become redundant in the next 20 years.
Tara
08 Jan 2023 18:44
The computerization of the images produced by xray technologists will certainly become more impressive, but you can't tell me a robot or AI understands how to get a chest xray on a kyphotic 90 year old, nor does it know how to position patients in general. This is hands-on medical care. A robot cannot help a patient that is vomiting, or put in an IV. Like nursing, the people part will remain. The rest of the tech can happily advance.
Smith (Uncertain)
31 Mar 2021 03:10
Technology might be better at noticing discrepancies compared to the normal, but the human touch will always be needed in the healthcare field to calm patients.
Avaneesh Babu
09 Nov 2020 19:11
Radiologists do more than just read scans, they interpret and understand these x-rays and speak to patients. I know that IT is taking strands towards this level, but they cannot ever converse with humans with the same efficiency.
Evolution
02 Jun 2020 11:56
AI is better in interpreting x-ray than human.
Adrian
13 Feb 2021 15:46
Well that's the radiologists work, rad techs pretty much only work the modalities and patients to get a picture that the radiologist can describe.
Keiko Taisho (Low)
09 Dec 2019 22:30
There’s no technology for the robots to work with the patients on a personal level
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Job description

Take x-rays and CAT scans or administer nonradioactive materials into patient's bloodstream for diagnostic or research purposes. Includes radiologic technologists and technicians who specialize in other scanning modalities.

O*NET-SOC code: 29-2034.00