An audiologist career means working as a clinician for hearing and balance: the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines audiologists as the professionals who diagnose, manage, and treat patients who have hearing, balance, or related problems.
This guide explains what the job involves day to day, where audiologists work, the AuD degree and state license it takes, the specialties you can pursue, and what the career pays.
What is an audiologist as a profession?
An audiologist is a clinician for hearing and balance.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines audiologists as the professionals who diagnose, manage, and treat patients who have hearing, balance, or related problems.
BLS tracks the occupation as 29-1181, so audiologists have their own line in federal employment and wage data rather than being folded into a broader group.
The profession's own scope documents draw the same picture.
ASHA's Scope of Practice in Audiology, its 2018 policy statement, says audiologists engage in hearing and balance assessment, nonmedical treatment and rehabilitation, including diagnosis, for people of all ages.
The American Academy of Audiology's 2023 scope describes audiologists as independent practitioners who serve as point-of-entry health-care providers for people with auditory and vestibular disorders.
That scope also separates the career from its nearest neighbor.
BLS says audiologists' ability to diagnose as well as treat distinguishes their work from that of hearing aid specialists.
The two occupations train on different routes as well: audiologists typically need a Doctor of Audiology, while BLS lists hearing aid specialists' typical entry education as a high school diploma with moderate-term on-the-job training.
Most ASHA-certified audiologists work in clinical service: in ASHA's 2025 profile, 77.9% were clinical service providers, 7.0% worked as administrators, 4.2% as college and university professors and 1.6% as researchers.
What does an audiologist do day to day?
The week mixes testing, treatment and counseling.
BLS's typical duties for audiologists span both the clinical and the dispensing sides of the job.
- Examining patients who have conditions of the outer, middle or inner ear
- Diagnosing problems and creating treatment plans
- Fitting and dispensing hearing aids and other assistive listening devices
- Counseling patients and their families
Notice how much of that list is communication: the counseling work sits directly next to the diagnostic work, and it matches the important qualities BLS lists for audiologists, among them communication skills and patience.
O*NET, the federal occupational database for 29-1181, adds evaluating hearing and balance disorders to determine diagnoses and courses of treatment, fitting, dispensing and repairing hearing aids, examining and cleaning ear canals, and programming and monitoring cochlear implants.
Balance work sits inside the same job: BLS notes audiologists also help patients with vertigo or other balance problems, for example by demonstrating head-movement or positioning exercises.
Support staff are part of the picture too: BLS notes audiologists may work with audiology assistants, which BLS classifies as a type of medical assistant.
The schedule also bends around patients: BLS notes that some audiologists work weekends and evenings to meet patients' needs.
Where do audiologists work?
Four employer groups lead the federal employment data.
BLS's 2025 profile names the largest employers of audiologists as offices of physicians (26%), offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists (26%), hospitals (16%) and educational services (10%).
ASHA's 2025 profile shows the same field from its members' side.
76.2% of ASHA-certified audiologists work in health care settings.
That includes 30.0% in hospitals and 45.5% in nonresidential health care, such as private physicians' offices (11.9%) and audiologists' and speech-language pathologists' offices (7.1%).
Another 6.6% work in schools and 5.6% in colleges and universities.
The two sources measure different populations, so read them side by side rather than as one picture.
BLS's shares describe the occupation as a whole, while ASHA's shares survey only audiologists certified by ASHA.
Private practice is a major slice of the field: ASHA's profile puts 32.1% of ASHA-certified audiologists in private practice full or part time, 26.1% full time and 6.0% part time.
ASHA counts employees of private practices in that share, not only owners, so the figure describes a work setting rather than an ownership rate.
Setting choice is worth taking seriously for another reason: a hospital post, a school contract and a private practice chair are different working lives, even though all of them carry the same job title.
The setting changes the shape of the work.
The American Academy of Audiology's 2023 scope says audiologists may provide services in person or remotely via telehealth.
BLS notes that some audiologists, such as those contracted by a school system, travel between multiple facilities.
What does it take to become an audiologist?
The route runs through one degree and one license.
Audiologists typically need a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) degree, which BLS says typically takes 4 years, and entry to an AuD program requires a bachelor's degree.
Licensing is the second gate.
BLS reports that all states require audiologists to be licensed, and that requirements vary by state but typically include an AuD from an accredited program.
Because requirements vary by state, the audiology board or licensing agency in the state where you plan to practice is the one to confirm them with.
A national credential can sit alongside the license.
Under ASHA's 2020 certification standards, CCC-A applicants hold a doctoral degree in audiology from a CAA-accredited program, a program in CAA candidacy, or the equivalent.
A credential is not a license: the state license is what the law requires to practice, while CCC-A is ASHA's own certification standard.
The distinction matters in job applications, where the license is the legal requirement and a credential is an additional standard an employer may recognize.
Rules change — confirm with the state board
Which audiology specialties can you pursue?
Specialization happens by setting and by patient population.
Federal job-title data shows the range: O*NET's reported job titles for audiologists include clinical audiologist, dispensing audiologist, educational audiologist, forensic audiologist, industrial audiologist, pediatric audiologist and staff audiologist.
The work itself branches the same way.
Pediatric audiology centers on children, and educational audiology supports students in school settings; ASHA's profile places 6.6% of ASHA-certified audiologists in schools.
Cochlear implant care appears in O*NET's task list as programming and monitoring implants, and balance care connects to the vestibular disorders AAA's 2023 scope names.
The industrial audiologist title points toward workplace and occupational settings.
Federal pay data does not follow the specialties: BLS reports audiologists as the single occupation 29-1181, so its wage figures blend every specialty and setting into one number.
How much do audiologists make?
The federal midpoint sits just under six figures.
In BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2025, the median annual wage for audiologists was $95,780, or $46.05 an hour.
The lowest 10 percent earned less than $64,610, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $133,120.
OEWS counts wage-and-salary workers only, so self-employed practice owners sit outside these figures.
The same survey counted 13,660 wage-and-salary audiologists nationally, with a mean annual wage of $97,740.
Median pay also moves by industry.
BLS's May 2025 medians for audiologists, by employer group, are in the table below.
| Employer group | Median annual wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|
| Hospitals | $103,700 |
| Educational services | $98,110 |
| Offices of physicians | $92,620 |
| Offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists | $81,730 |
Those are wage-and-salary medians, not ownership income, and each blends experience levels.
A median describes the middle of a wage distribution, so it is neither a starting offer nor an owner's income.
Individual pay sits around these midpoints: the 10th-to-90th percentile spread runs from below $64,610 to above $133,120, and the industry medians above differ by employer group.
Is audiology a good career?
Start with the federal outlook.
BLS projects employment of audiologists to grow 11% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, with about 600 openings a year.
The occupation itself is small.
BLS's Employment Projections count about 14,200 audiologist jobs in 2025, a figure that includes the self-employed.
The OEWS survey counts 13,660 wage-and-salary audiologists, so the two federal numbers measure different populations.
Weigh the training runway against the rest.
The AuD typically takes 4 years after a bachelor's degree, every state requires a license, and the wage data above puts the national median at $95,780.
The costs are real too: a 4-year doctorate means tuition and deferred earnings before the first licensed job.
Settings run from hospitals and physician practices to schools, telehealth and multi-site roles, so the day-to-day work varies more than the single job title suggests.
For the wider market picture — employment, wages and how open hearing care roles are moving — our hearing care industry statistics pull the federal numbers and listing data together.
Find audiologist jobs
Audiology hiring runs through the employer groups the federal data names: physician practices, audiology and speech therapy clinics, hospitals, and education employers, including schools and universities.
The audiologist jobs page collects open roles in one place, and the board lists hearing care positions only.
The market has an employer side too: practices, ENT groups, hospitals and school programs that need to hire an audiologist can start with the hiring hub, which gathers HearingHires' employer guides.