Radiologic Technologists and Technicians

Moderate Risk
49%

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Vote Comments (11)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
58%
(Moderate Risk)
POLLING
40%
(Low Risk, Based on 319 votes)
Average: 49%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
5.8%
by year 2033
WAGES
$73,410
or $35.29 per hour
Volume
221,170
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
5.6/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

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Calculated automation risk

58% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some very important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Assisting and Caring for Others

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Social Perceptiveness

User poll

40% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. However, the automation risk level we have generated suggests a higher chance of automation: 58% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Radiologic Technologists and Technicians will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' job openings is expected to rise 5.8% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' was $73,410, or $35 per hour

'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' were paid 52.7% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 221,170 people employed as 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians' within the United States.

This represents around 0.15% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 686 people are employed as 'Radiologic Technologists and Technicians'.

Job description

Take x-rays and CAT scans or administer nonradioactive materials into patient's bloodstream for diagnostic or research purposes. Includes radiologic technologists and technicians who specialize in other scanning modalities.

SOC Code: 29-2034.00

Comments (11)

Leave a comment
Scott Ellis (Low)
25 Jul 2025 19:58
Positioning and moving patients from beds to tables requires effort.
Will Smith (Low)
16 Apr 2025 17:13
AI is a tool and has no business taking over any sort of jobs. It's all capitalistic bull**** that will backfire when they try to replace people with AI to save money and everything in the company and economy go to shit.
Abdou abderrahman (Low)
25 Aug 2024 15:58
First you need to take care of patients and in accidents or having an elderly patient who doesn't know how to use technology The ai will not be suitable for job
Secondly we have kids and kids will be scared if a piece of metal tries to grab him so you need human interaction
Trevor
15 Jul 2024 07:07
The main issue is taking an x-ray or getting a scan that is not easy to get. A lot of imaging done (mainly in hospitals over outpatient) is not perfect. Patients can not always hold still, get into position, or their condition does not allow for the intended imaging. I believe that if only technologists voted on this they would all say there is little to no chance. The people voting is likely not made of all technologist. Personally I think there is a small chance that AI could take my job. One of the newer CT scanners I use can automatically scan the patient and recon the scans with almost no input by me. But actually scanning the patient is such a small percent of what actually happens. There would need to be a major breakthrough in imaging equipment or AI in order for this to be possible.
Brandon (Low)
01 Feb 2023 07:39
The meticulous work done by a radiological technician is extremely difficult to replace through artificial intelligence. The reason being, the contrast in faults that could be the cause of the same problem.

Fortunately, there are also too many different makes of machines. For one robot to be programmed to fault find and fix all makes of x-ray machines is going to take at least 40 years to develop, which won't be worth an engineer's effort based on its purpose.

This job will not become redundant in the next 20 years.
Tara
08 Jan 2023 18:44
The computerization of the images produced by xray technologists will certainly become more impressive, but you can't tell me a robot or AI understands how to get a chest xray on a kyphotic 90 year old, nor does it know how to position patients in general. This is hands-on medical care. A robot cannot help a patient that is vomiting, or put in an IV. Like nursing, the people part will remain. The rest of the tech can happily advance.
Smith (Uncertain)
31 Mar 2021 03:10
Technology might be better at noticing discrepancies compared to the normal, but the human touch will always be needed in the healthcare field to calm patients.
Avaneesh Babu
09 Nov 2020 19:11
Radiologists do more than just read scans, they interpret and understand these x-rays and speak to patients. I know that IT is taking strands towards this level, but they cannot ever converse with humans with the same efficiency.
Evolution
02 Jun 2020 11:56
AI is better in interpreting x-ray than human.
Adrian
13 Feb 2021 15:46
Well that's the radiologists work, rad techs pretty much only work the modalities and patients to get a picture that the radiologist can describe.
Keiko Taisho (Low)
09 Dec 2019 22:30
There’s no technology for the robots to work with the patients on a personal level
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