A VA audiologist is a licensed audiologist employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, whose audiology program describes the VA as the largest employer of audiologists in the United States, with nearly 1,400 audiologists and audiology services available at more than 650 sites of care.
This hub explains what the job involves, how federal hiring works through USAJOBS and the GS-0665 series, and how the VA, military and DoD civilian tracks differ.
What does a VA audiologist do?
The core work is clinical audiology: evaluating hearing, selecting and fitting hearing technology, and counseling patients.
What makes the job distinct is not the clinical skill set but the system around it, because supply, support staff and training all run through one national program.
The footprint is national.
VA audiology services are available at more than 650 VA sites of care, and VA provides cochlear implant services at over 125 sites.
Hearing technology is furnished through national contracts with the top five hearing aid manufacturers.
The fitting side of the job therefore runs on a contracted national supply structure rather than clinic-by-clinic purchasing.
The department also runs on a supervised team.
VHA audiology employs nearly 400 health technicians working under the supervision of a licensed audiologist, and many of those technicians hold the CAOHC COHC designation.
The program also trains over 150 graduate trainees under licensed-audiologist supervision.
Access works differently too.
Audiology is one of the few services enrolled veterans can schedule directly without needing a referral from primary care.
A state license follows you into the federal system
Why is the VA the largest employer of audiologists?
VA's own audiology program page, checked on October 12, 2026, states that VA is the largest employer of audiologists in the United States, with nearly 1,400 audiologists.
The claim comes from the employer itself, and it is the count the program currently publishes.
The scale is not new.
In May 2020, VA News reported that VA employed over 1,370 audiologists, 410 audiology health technicians and 450 speech-language pathologists, calling VA the largest employer of audiologists and SLPs in the country.
Treat those figures as a dated snapshot; the program's current page carries the present count.
Two structural facts sit alongside that count.
The first is footprint: audiology is available at more than 650 sites of care.
The second is access: enrolled veterans can schedule audiology directly, without a referral from primary care.
For a job seeker, the practical meaning is breadth of placement: one audiology employer with positions across a network of more than 650 sites, a support layer of nearly 400 health technicians, and a training pipeline of over 150 graduate trainees.
How does federal hiring work (USAJOBS, GS-0665)?
Start with USAJOBS, where federal agencies post their openings.
Outside VA, audiologist positions are filled under OPM's qualification standard for the GS-0665 series, the Speech/Language Pathology and Audiology Series, and each announcement is the authority for its own duties, grade and qualification standard.
OPM's qualification standard for audiologist positions in the series requires a graduate or higher level graduate degree that included 18 semester hours in the field of audiology with approved clinical practice, from a CAA-accredited program.
The license requirement is not tied to one state.
The OPM standard asks for a full, current and unrestricted license in a State, DC, Puerto Rico or a US territory — any one jurisdiction.
A clinician licensed in one jurisdiction meets the standard as written, whichever of them it is.
In practice, that means reading the announcement first.
For positions outside VA, the GS-0665 standard is the baseline to check yourself against.
For VA positions, the Title 38 standard controls, and the announcement plus the facility's human resources office are the authoritative sources for what applies to you.
VA does not hire under the OPM standard
Military vs VA vs DoD civilian audiology
Audiology careers with the federal government run on three separate tracks, and they are not interchangeable.
The VA employs civilian audiologists to care for enrolled veterans under its own Title 38 qualification standard.
Federal agencies outside VA, among them the Department of Defense's civilian workforce, fill audiologist positions under the OPM GS-0665 standard.
The uniformed military services are the third track.
The uniformed track is the one our research covers least.
The service branches' own audiology career pages were not reachable during our research in October 2026, so we cannot describe commissioning routes, service obligations or branch-specific audiology roles here.
Military audiologist pay tables are not published in the sources we hold, either.
Treat branch-specific claims accordingly.
Details such as a branch's audiology designation, scholarship coverage or service commitments should be confirmed with the branch's medical recruiting team before you rely on them, because our review could not verify them from official pages.
The VA and DoD civilian tracks are both civilian employment; the difference our sources show is the personnel system.
VA's qualification rules sit in its own Title 38 handbook, while other agencies' audiologist positions follow the OPM GS-0665 standard, including its any-one-jurisdiction license rule.
Benefits and career ladder (overview)
The program's own numbers show how VA audiology is staffed.
Nearly 400 health technicians work under licensed-audiologist supervision, many holding the CAOHC COHC designation.
Over 150 graduate trainees learn under licensed-audiologist supervision.
The clinical staff is the nearly 1,400 audiologists themselves.
Those are three separate groups, not rungs of one ladder, and our research did not establish how a VA audiologist advances in grade or responsibility.
Where specific openings appear is a separate question: federal announcements, not this page, are the source for currently open roles.
On benefits, our research did not collect the current details on health coverage, retirement or leave, so we will not summarize them secondhand.
The announcement and the facility's human resources office are the authoritative sources for what a specific position offers.
Pay is its own question, and it belongs to the pay pages.
Our sources carry no wage figure for VA audiologists separately; the closest published figure is the OEWS May 2025 national median for audiologists as a whole (SOC 29-1181), which was $95,780.
The full tables sit on the audiologist salary page.
For federal pay specifically, the announcement is the source — our sources do not publish GS-level pay detail for audiologists as a group.
Find VA audiologist jobs
Check USAJOBS directly for federal announcements that name VA facilities and clinics, and browse VA audiologist jobs on HearingHires' live board of hearing-care roles across employers, including VA and federal postings when they are listed.
When you read a posting, check three things against this page: the qualification standard the announcement names (VA's Title 38 standard for VA roles, the OPM GS-0665 standard elsewhere), the license the position requires, and the duty station.
The announcement controls, because federal hiring rules change and this page reflects sources checked in October 2026.
If you are on the employer side — a clinic, a practice or a facility recruiting audiologists — start from the site's hiring audiologists section.
Career information, not medical, legal or licensing advice — confirm qualification, licensing and hiring requirements with VA Human Resources, the agency named on the announcement and your state licensing board.