The Average Salaries of Veterinarians
Veterinarians care for animals, providing medical, surgical and preventive care. Most veterinarians care for household pets, although others specialize in care for large animals or a particular animal, such as horses. Veterinarians must be licensed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Vets must graduate from an accredited four-year veterinarian school as a doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM or VMD), although not all vet schools require a bachelor’s degree in order to be admitted.
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National Average Salaries
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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that the median salary for veterinarians in the U.S. in 2008 was about $79,000 per year. The middle 50th percentile earned between $61,000 and $104,000. The bottom 10 percent made less than $46,610 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $143,000 per year. The average annual salary for veterinarians working for the federal government was $93,398 as of March 2009. PayScale.com places the salary range for all vets — regardless of experience or specialty — at $58,000 to $86,000 per year.
Starting Salaries
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Starting salaries for recent vet school graduates showed mixed results in a 2009 survey conducted by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). AVMA chief executive officer Dr. W. Ron DeHaven, in a press release, said "While most starting salaries are up, there are some areas that saw declines. And while the vast majority of these new veterinarians are getting jobs, we saw a drop this year in the number of graduates who received job offers by the time they graduated.” The survey revealed that about 80 percent of new graduates received either a job offer or an advanced-degree opportunity upon graduating, which was down 11 percent from 2008 figures. New vet salaries increased 0.7 percent in 2009, from $48,328 to $48,684. Aside from advanced-study students, the average starting salary increased 5.2 percent, from $61,633 in 2008 to $64,826 in 2009.
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Experience
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PayScale.com reports that the salary range of veterinarians with 20 years or more experience is about $60,000 to $99,000 per year. Those with 10 to 19 years experience averaged $60,500 to $90,500 annually. Vets with five to nine years experience made $59,000 to $85,500 a year, and those with one to four years on the job earned about $54,000 to $75,000 a year.
Salary by Specialty
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The AVMA survey indicates that vets who specialize in small animals exclusively — normally house pets like dogs and cats — earned the highest starting salaries, about $65,000, regardless of whether they worked in solo practices, group practices, animal shelters or clinics. Vets specializing exclusively in the care of large animals — usually farm animals — made the next highest starting salary at about $62,500. Those specializing in equines, or horses, earned the least of all veterinarians with a starting salary of less than $42,000. These starting-salary trends continued through the careers of vets, according to the BLS report.
Debt
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The AVMA survey revealed that 88.6 percent of veterinary students had debt at the time of their graduation. All but 9.6 percent of that debt incurred while in veterinary school. The average debt amount increased 8.5 percent between 2008 and 2009, with student debt averaging $129,976 in 2009. About one-third of students had a debt of more than $150,000.
Outlook
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Job growth through 2018 is expected to be much higher than the national average, 33 percent, according to the BLS. Veterinarians specializing in the care of common household pets are projected to enjoy the greatest increase of growth. An increasing pet population will cause the majority of this expected increase, and the very limited number of veterinary schools in the U.S. (28 in 2009) produces a limited number of graduates each year (about 2,500). Also, vets who specialize in particular treatments, such as surgery or dental care, also can expect good job-growth prospects as more people choose to provide their pets with procedures such as hip replacement surgery or cancer treatment.
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