Best physical therapist salary resources

Comprehensive Guide to Knowing Physical Therapist Salary

The problem with trying to figure out what your salary should be as a physical therapist is that very few sources give you your salary information based on years of experience, setting, and geographic location ALL at the same time. 

For example, one of the largest databases is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but only with a great amount of digging and a cumbersome process can you get region-specific averages through the BLS system. Even with all this data, the BLS doesn’t take years of experience or setting into account.

That is where most PT salary norms fall short. If you want the simplest way to get setting, region, and years of experience specific estimates for your PT salary, use the PhysioRebellion Salary calculator. If you want to leave no stone unturned, you can use all the steps below and get a good idea of your salary.

How much does a physical therapist make (aka what is the salary for a physical therapist)?

If you want to use a comprehensive process to get as many salary estimates as possible, here’s how I recommend going about it. You will need to go through at least 4 sources (I personally recommend Bureau of Labor Statistics, Updoc Media, salary.com, payscale.com, and physiorebellion.com) to get as specific of salary information as you can.

Remember, BLS is only going to give you a geographic region.  Finding the setting-specific information is a bit cumbersome and categorized inaccurately (plus, you have to do two different searches). Updoc Media will give you examples of salaries for your state and may even have a few for your specific region. 

NOTE: The Physio Rebellion salary calculator will combine multiple sources (BLS, other databases, and numerous specific salaries entered) to give you your physical therapist salary by region, years of experience, and setting.

Physio Rebellion Salary Calculator

Simply start off with the Physio Rebellion Physical Therapist Salary Calculator (which we discussed above). This is by far the largest database that considers physical therapist salary by setting, years of experience, and geographic region (I may a bit biased because we spent years creating it).

With every valid salary entered the algorithm gets better and more precise physical therapist salaries. I truly believe this is how we improve salaries for physical therapists -- transparency allows us to command the salaries we deserve.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

This is by far the largest database of general physical therapist salaries by region. To get your salary, click here and input your region. The strength of the BLS is less sampling bias because the data is pulled from government documents or employer surveys (as opposed to PTs self-selecting to submit their salary). The only problem with the BLS database is that the setting categories are a bit unusual and they overlap a lot. In addition, it does not account for years of experience. So you are getting a region-specific, quasi setting-specific data. The downside is it is a bit cumbersome to go through the process. I outline the steps below. 

Updoc Media

Updoc Media has a compilation of a few hundred salaries each year from around the country each year since 2017. Thus, on average there are 5-10 salaries from each state in the database from each given year.

PayScale

What I like about payscale is that they give the company and years of experience that the salary estimate is taken from. From looking at the company, frequently you can get an idea of the setting. For example, from what I know Athletico and ATI only have outpatient ortho/sports facilities. So in some instances, you can get region, setting, and years of experience information (although the number of salaries listed may only be 1 or 2).

Salary.com

Salary.com is another source that will give you an additional data point as you try to most accurately estimate your salary range. It is easy to use but you do have to set up an account and give a lot of information to get your salary.

Step by Step Instructions for Each Physical Therapist Salary Bureau of Labor Statistics

To get your salary, click here and perform the following steps (remember, we use all of this data in the professional rebellion calculator -- so the steps are done for you) https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/home

1) Click  One occupation for multiple geographical areas

2) Next, scroll down to Health Care Practitioners (about ⅓ the way down). Under the Therapists subheading, select physical therapists

3) Next, select Metropolitan or Non Metropolitan Area

4) Select datatypes (easiest to just select Annual Median Wage but you can select all the statistics you would like to see which is what I do)

5) Select output HTML (web) or Excel

HTML is easiest if you are only selecting one data point for one region. Excel is better for multiple data points.

And there you have it! You have the most comprehensive physical therapist salary database, but remember it is not setting specific and doesn’t consider years of experience. If you want to get setting specific, you can repeat the process of selecting industry. But remember, it will still just be a median or mean physical therapist salary for the average number of years experience.

If you put all of the data sources together, you can get a good idea of the range of PT salary. But that is why the Physio Rebellion Physical Therapist Salary Calculator was created.