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Occupational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Assistants

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Assistants on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Occupational Therapists Occupational Therapy Assistants
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$98,340
$68,340
Employment · BLS OEWS
152,280
47,910
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
32nd pct
25th pct

At a glance

Dimension Occupational Therapists Occupational Therapy Assistants
Median pay $98,340 $68,340
Employment 152,280 47,910
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Growing fast (+13.8%) Growing fast (+19.2%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 10,200 7,200
Typical education · O*NET Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree). Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
AI exposure · published exposure studies Low · 32nd pct Low · 25th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 32nd pct · 20% of tasks 57th pct · 30% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Automation-leaning (50.0%) Augmentation-leaning (70.8%)
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman No No

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: Therapy and Counseling, Psychology, Customer and Personal Service, Medicine and Dentistry, Active Listening, Monitoring, Service Orientation, Oral Expression, English Language, Reading Comprehension, Writing, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Social Perceptiveness, Instructing, Judgment and Decision Making, Written Expression, Problem Sensitivity, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Active Learning, Learning Strategies, Oral Comprehension, Written Comprehension, Information Ordering, Speech Recognition, Speech Clarity, Education and Training, Coordination, Time Management, Fluency of Ideas, Near Vision, Complex Problem Solving, Category Flexibility, Sociology and Anthropology, Systems Analysis.

Specific to Occupational Therapists

  • Originality
  • Biology
  • Selective Attention
  • Operations Analysis

Specific to Occupational Therapy Assistants

  • Public Safety and Security
  • Administrative
  • Static Strength
  • Computers and Electronics

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Medical software , Web page creation and editing software , Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Word processing software , Graphics or photo imaging software , Optical character reader OCR or scanning software , Electronic mail software , Billing and invoicing software , Data base user interface and query software , Computer based training software , Device drivers or system software , Internet browser software .

Specific to Occupational Therapists

Specific to Occupational Therapy Assistants

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Occupational Therapists or Occupational Therapy Assistants — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

More comparisons

Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Occupational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Assistants." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/occupational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-assistants

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Occupational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Assistants. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/occupational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-assistants

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-occupational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-assistants,
  title  = {Occupational Therapists vs Occupational Therapy Assistants},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/occupational-therapists-vs-occupational-therapy-assistants}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.