You take the x-rays and scans doctors use to work out what is wrong. Two years of school and you are working in a hospital.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $80,110 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $55,980 at the lower end to about $118,660 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 3 years after high school, on the usual route.
$8,000 to $48,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$80,110
Bottom tenth
$55,980
Top tenth
$118,660
The national median is $80,110 a year. The bottom tenth earn $55,980 or less and the top tenth $118,660 or more (2025 federal wage survey). The survey counts technologists and technicians together, so plain x-ray work sits at the lower end and advanced scanning at the upper end.
$55,980 to $64,810
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of radiologic technologists and technicians earn, 2025
Newly certified technologists doing general x-ray usually start in this part of the range. Hospitals pay extra for night, weekend and on-call shifts. Travel contracts are another option, but you move every few months.
$95,480 median
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technologists, against $80,110 for radiologic technologists, 2025
The biggest pay lever is learning CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and getting the extra credential. The federal wage survey counts MRI technologists on their own line. Many technologists do it in their second or third year, often paid for by the hospital.
Roughly, all in
$8,000 to $48,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year associate degree at a community college in your own district, plus the national certification exam and, in the states that require one, a state license that is usually under $200 to start. The high end is the four year degree route at a public university in your own state. Clinical placement hours are built into the program and are unpaid, which is a time cost rather than a money cost. This is one of the cheapest routes into a real health career, and a Pell Grant can cover most of the community college version.
One of the cheapest routes into a real health career. Fill in the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) first: a Pell Grant can cover most of a community college program and is not a loan.
Shift differentials
Extra hourly pay for nights, weekends and being on call. Some technologists build their schedule around it.
Employer-paid cross-training
Hospitals need advanced imaging staff and will often pay to train someone already on the payroll.
Full hospital benefits
Health cover, retirement matching, and a pension at many public and university hospitals.
Travel contracts
Short assignments in places that are short-staffed, often with housing included.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two years, most of it hands on in a real imaging department.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Biology, physics, math and anatomy if your school offers it. Some programs want a health course or volunteer hours too.
Get into an accredited program
Apply a year ahead
Look for accreditation by the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology. Admission is competitive and cohorts are small.
Associate degree in radiography
2 years
Anatomy, positioning, radiation physics and protection, plus clinical rotations in hospitals from your first semester.
Pass the national exam
After graduation
The radiography certification exam from the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, which also has an ethics review before you may sit it.
State license and first job
Weeks
44 states license anyone who operates radiation equipment on people. Then hospitals hire, often from their own clinical students.
Anatomy and biology
You need to know what is under the skin to line up the shot correctly.
Physics
Radiation, exposure settings and safety are physics you use every shift.
Math
Exposure factors and dose calculations.
English
Instructing nervous patients clearly, and documenting exactly what you did.
Two separate hurdles. The national one is certification by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, which almost every employer treats as mandatory and which you maintain with continuing education. The state one is a license to operate radiation-producing equipment on people, which 44 states require. Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, North Carolina and Oklahoma do not, and the District of Columbia has no such license in force. Make sure your program is accredited before you enroll, because graduating from an unaccredited program can leave you ineligible to sit the exam, which is the whole point of going.
Community colleges
The main route. Cheap, two years, and tied to local hospitals for clinical placements.
Hospital-based programs
Run inside a hospital, heavy on clinical time, awarding a certificate or a degree with a partner college.
Universities
Four year degrees that open management, education and advanced imaging roles later.
Check pass rates and job placement
Accredited programs publish both. Compare them before you pick.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Computed tomography
Cross-sectional scanning, used constantly in emergency departments. The most common second credential.
Magnetic resonance imaging
No radiation, long scans, strong magnets and strict safety rules. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technologists had a median of $95,480 in 2025, against $80,110 for radiologic technologists.
Mammography
Federally regulated with its own training requirements, and always in demand.
Interventional radiography
Working alongside doctors during live procedures, guiding catheters with imaging. Includes call shifts.
Physical stamina
You are on your feet, moving equipment and helping patients who cannot move themselves.
A calm manner
Half your patients are in pain, frightened or confused, and you have to position them anyway.
Radiation safety instincts
The rule is to keep every dose as low as reasonably achievable, for the patient and for yourself.
Flexibility about shifts
Hospitals image around the clock, and new staff get the least popular hours.
This career is built to be stacked. Start in general x-ray, add an advanced modality in your second or third year, then choose a direction: lead technologist running a department schedule, applications specialist for an equipment manufacturer, program instructor at a college, or a bachelor's degree and a move into imaging management. A smaller number go on to train as a radiologist assistant, working directly under a radiologist with a much wider scope.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Check the machine and the room, then work the list: chest films, a wrist after a fall, an abdomen for someone doubled over. Each exam is a few minutes of positioning, a quick exposure, and a check that the image is good enough for a radiologist to read. In between, the emergency department calls for a portable machine at a bedside, and the operating room wants imaging during a procedure. You explain the same thing fifty times a day to fifty different people.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Technologists wear a small monitoring badge that records radiation exposure, read on a schedule and kept on record. The guiding rule of the profession is to keep every dose as low as reasonably achievable.
Federal projections give radiologic technologists and technicians a Bright Outlook: faster than average growth from 2025 to 2035 and about 13,000 openings a year, in a field of about 234,200 people.
You often see the fracture or the mass before anyone else does, but interpreting the image is the radiologist's job. Learning to answer questions without diagnosing is part of the training.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Diagnostics and lab first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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