Becoming a Rad Tech including salary and job prospects along with the best states to work in. X-ray Radiologic Technologists (Radiographers) position patients, inject contrast and create diagnostic images in x-ray radiography, and provide imaging during interventional minimally invasive and surgical procedures. X-ray rad techs in the United States have a median salary of $61,370 and the national average salary is $66,490.
Number of Radiologic Technologists in US Average Hourly Wage Average Yearly Salary Expected Growth
216,380 $31.97 $66,490 9% Increase
What are radiology jobs?
A radiologist’s jobs involves reading diagnostic medical images and there are some interventional radiologists who perform minimally invasive surgery. Physicians who pursue this career often are trained to read from multiple modalities including: radiography, ultrasound imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and a computed tomography (CT) technique.
On the other hand when there are images needed, a professional radiologic technologist takes images of the organs within the body. Once an image is created the radiologists can use it for the diagnosis of diseases. It may also be possible to compare patients’ organs to those from a healthy organ. The referring physicians use these images and the radiology reports as a crucial part of their medical and treatment planning for their patients.
Radiology Technician vs Radiologic Technologist
If you are new to the field you maybe searching for different terms as you are more familiar with the term Radiology and the term Technician. Many of these terms are used interchangeably online including: Radiology Technician vs Radiology Technologist vs Radiologic Technician vs Radiologic Technologist vs Radiographer. These terms are often used interchangeably to refer to the same position. Over time the responsibilities have increased and the currently preferred title in the US for x-ray, CT and MRI is Radiologic Technologist.
The term Radiologic Technologists is given for those who have gone through significant training and understand x-ray physics along with patient anatomy and proper patient positioning.
DO NOT refer to a Radiologic technologist as a Radiography Technician or an other variant. Despite the fact that they both can be abbreviated as Rad Tech. Technologists studied long and hard to get earn that title so make sure you use the appropriate one.
Therefore we will be using the term Radiologic technologist and Rad Tech from here forward in this article and not any of these other variations.
In Europe and Asia the term Radiographer is used to describe the same position. This is actually a more straightforward title but since the information in this article is primarily from the United States we will not extensively use the term Radiographer.
To further complicate the naming MRI uses the title MRI technologists and ultrasound uses the title sonographer (in a similar manner to radiographer) and one who images the breast is a mammographer.
What is the average salary for radiologic technologists?
Radiologic technologists in the United States have a national average salary of $66,490. This is for x-ray and CT rad techs and excludes magnetic resonance imaging technologists (MRI technologists), cardiovascular technologists as well as stenographers. Those are additional positions which would require separate training. All of the salary information in this articles comes from searches of the BLS database.
What is the median radiologic technologist salary?
Radiologic technologists in the United States have a national median salary of $61,370. The median value is lower than the mean/average value. This means that there are some technologists who have salaries on the high end and these higher values, these higher salaries are raising the average salary.
This national median rad tech salary is higher than the national median salary for all workers in the US which is about $32,000 per year.
As you will see below there are some areas of the country that have a higher cost of living and those regions need to pay higher salaries to offset the costs for housing, groceries, etc. As with the average radiologic technologist salary this is for x-ray and CT rad techs and does not include magnetic resonance imaging technologists (MRI technologists), cardiovascular technologists or stenographers.
The highest paid states are California, Hawaii and Massachusetts; while the lowest paid states are Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi.
