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Occupational Therapy Assistants vs Occupational Therapists

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

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

At a glance

Dimension Occupational Therapy Assistants Occupational Therapists
Median pay $68,340 $98,340
Employment 47,910 152,280
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection Growing fast (+19.2%) Growing fast (+13.8%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 7,200 10,200
Typical education · O*NET Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree. 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).
AI exposure · published exposure studies Low · 25th pct Low · 32nd pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk 57th pct · 30% of tasks 32nd pct · 20% of tasks
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index Augmentation-leaning (70.8%) Automation-leaning (50.0%)
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: Customer and Personal Service, Psychology, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Education and Training, Active Listening, Speaking, Social Perceptiveness, Service Orientation, Written Expression, Problem Sensitivity, English Language, Therapy and Counseling, Reading Comprehension, Written Comprehension, Time Management, Near Vision, Critical Thinking, Monitoring, Deductive Reasoning, Information Ordering, Speech Clarity, Writing, Active Learning, Learning Strategies, Instructing, Inductive Reasoning, Speech Recognition, Sociology and Anthropology, Coordination, Judgment and Decision Making, Fluency of Ideas, Medicine and Dentistry, Complex Problem Solving, Systems Analysis, Category Flexibility.

Specific to Occupational Therapy Assistants

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

Specific to Occupational Therapists

  • Originality
  • Biology
  • Selective Attention
  • Operations Analysis

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

Specific to Occupational Therapy Assistants

Specific to Occupational Therapists

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Occupational Therapy Assistants or Occupational Therapists — 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 Therapy Assistants vs Occupational Therapists." 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-therapy-assistants-vs-occupational-therapists

APA

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

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-occupational-therapy-assistants-vs-occupational-therapists,
  title  = {Occupational Therapy Assistants vs Occupational Therapists},
  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-therapy-assistants-vs-occupational-therapists}
}

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