Veterinarian pay kept climbing through 2026, but support staff wages moved more slowly, stretching the difference between what practices pay their doctors and everyone else.
What Veterinarians Are Earning in 2026
Veterinary Jobs Marketplace's twice-yearly benchmark survey shows the full three-year trend:
The midpoint is up 47% over three years, and last year's jump was the largest single-period move the survey has recorded.
For context, BLS also tracks a broader national veterinarian median covering all experience levels and practice types, not just early-career general practice hires. That figure rose from $119,100 in 2023 to $130,100 in 2025, a different population than the benchmark above, but pointing the same direction.
Specialty premiums remain steep. Surgery pays roughly 35% above general practice. Emergency/referral medicine, surgical specialties, internal medicine, oncology, and ophthalmology all pay 50% or more above general practice base pay.
What Vet Techs and Support Staff Are Earning
The wage gap between veterinarians and support staff has widened rather than closed. BLS wage data shows the three-year trend below, drawing on BLS's own May 2023 figures and a 2025 compilation of that same BLS data:
Pay varies widely by state, per this vet tech pay by state compilation of BLS figures:
Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing pays the highest median wage for veterinary technicians, at $68,820, well above the $48,480 median in veterinary services, the industry where most technicians actually work.
Why the Gap Matters for Practices
Retention risk follows directly from this: techs and assistants who feel underpaid relative to rising veterinarian salaries are the ones most likely to leave, and replacing them in today's labor market is expensive and slow. Closing that gap, alongside the moves in Hound's veterinary staff retention guide, is how practices hold onto their people.