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Physical Therapy Assistant: what the job is, what it pays, and how to get hired.

The work, the skills that matter, the tools in demand and the pay range, from U.S. government data, plus every TryHired page for the role.

Maid DizdarevicCareer coach · 8x LinkedIn Top Voice
Updated Oct 24, 2026 · Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 · O*NET 31.0
Pay ladder · select a percentile
Median percentile pay

Half of physical therapy assistants earn more than this and half earn less.

Annual
$68,380
Hourly
$32.88
Source
BLS May 2025
Quick answer

Physical Therapy Assistants assist physical therapists in providing physical therapy treatments and procedures. The median pay is $68,380 a year ($32.88 an hour) (BLS, May 2025). The most commonly reported education requirement is an associate's degree (84% of workers surveyed by O*NET).

Median pay
$68,380
BLS May 2025
Employed in the U.S.
112,430
BLS May 2025
Preparation
Job Zone 3 of 5
medium preparation
Most common education
Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree
84% of workers

Data Government data groups this job as Physical Therapist Assistants (O*NET-SOC 31-2021.00). Figures on this page are for that occupation.

Explore the role

Every page for Physical Therapy Assistants

SalaryPhysical Therapy Assistant salary

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The work

What physical therapy assistants do day to day

Data Core tasks rated most important by workers in the role (O*NET).

  1. Instruct, motivate, safeguard, and assist patients as they practice exercises or functional activities.
  2. Document patient information, such as notes on their progress.
  3. Observe patients during treatments to compile and evaluate data on their responses and progress and provide results to physical therapist in person or through progress notes.
  4. Instruct patients in proper body mechanics and in ways to improve functional mobility, such as aquatic exercise.
  5. Secure patients into or onto therapy equipment.
  6. Confer with physical therapy staff or others to discuss and evaluate patient information for planning, modifying, or coordinating treatment.
  7. Administer active or passive manual therapeutic exercises, therapeutic massage, aquatic physical therapy, or heat, light, sound, or electrical modality treatments, such as ultrasound.
  8. Transport patients to and from treatment areas, lifting and transferring them according to positioning requirements.
Skills that matter

Ranked by importance to the job

Data O*NET importance ratings. The first three are core.

Active ListeningcoreSocial PerceptivenesscoreSpeakingcoreMonitoringService OrientationReading ComprehensionWritingCritical ThinkingActive Learning

Knowledge areas: Customer and Personal Service, Therapy and Counseling, English Language, Education and Training, Psychology, Medicine and Dentistry.

Tools and technology

Software physical therapy assistants use

Data Examples reported for the role; employer demand flags from O*NET.

  • eClinicalWorks EHR softwareMedical softwareHot technology
  • Arena Health Systems Phys-XMedical software
  • Beaver Creek Software The THERAPISTMedical software
  • Billing softwareBilling and invoicing software
  • BioEx Systems Exercise ProMedical software
  • Client caseload management softwareMedical software
  • Eazy Application Systems QuickEMRMedical software
  • Knees Software PT DocToolsMedical software
  • Laboratory information system LISMedical software
  • Medical condition coding softwareMedical software
  • PhysioTools Tools RGMedical software
  • Rehab Documentation Company ReDoc SuiteMedical software

Also called: Physical Therapist Assistant, Pta, Certified Physical Therapist Assistant (CPTA), Home Care Physical Therapy Assistant, Home Health Physical Therapist Assistant, Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant (LPTA), Licensed Physical Therapy Assistant, Outpatient Physical Therapist Assistant.

Method

How this page is built

Tasks, skills, tools, education and related roles come from O*NET 31.0. Pay and employment come from the BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates. The skill-match score is our calculation: Skill match is the correlation between the two occupations' skill profiles: for each of 35 O*NET skills (10 essential, 25 transferable) we multiply importance by level, subtract the average across all occupations, and correlate the two profiles. 100 means identical shape; 0 or below means unrelated. Only occupations that O*NET itself lists as related are compared.

What this page can't tell you
  • How a specific employer defines the job.
  • Pay for self-employed workers (OEWS covers employees).
  • Your own chances: data describes the occupation, not you.
Sources
  1. O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).